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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I’ve thought more on this yesterday, and I think my issue is-

    I don’t want something that ‘just works’, I want to BUILD something that ‘just works’

    The distinction is that I don’t want to buy premade solutions. I want to make them. Not because of the customizability, but because the fun is in the building. Think Lego- hundreds of people build the exact same product in the end, but why are they sold in pieces? Just assemble the damn things and sell them complete (with markup). You think more people wanna buy that?? I’d bet against it.


  • Hard agree. In fact, I think there’s a market for JUST the guides. It’s true that there’s a TON of guides out there already, from old blogs to YouTube, but the issue is: all of them start or end with: “your use case might differ, so perhaps this solution isn’t for you.” Or “make sure this setup is compatible with your specific hardware”

    For example: I want to set up some sort of backup/cloud storage type system. Well there’s about 1400 ways to accomplish that. I can easily just grab one and go, but I’ll always wonder- should I have done this a different way? Would my life be easier/more secure if I chose a different set up?

    So offering hardware that is compatible with whatever “stack” of services included would be a huge plus. Sorta like getting a raspberry pi and following a specific raspberry pi tutorial- you know the issues you get aren’t gonna be due to incompatibility.

    I think it really boils down to the scale of one’s home lab- are you just tinkering to get some skills and make something cool? Or are you hoping to do something much much bigger? Different software solutions fit those extremes differently.

    Sorry, got off rambling there. I guess I’ve been down the home lab hardware/software wormhole for too long these last few weeks.













  • Agreed. Changes this large for society will always take time. That’s why it’s important to not burn yourself out on one issue, or one fight. You gotta buckle in the for the long run. But keep fighting for change in a way that allows you to keep fighting. I feel guilty sometimes for not getting more involved in issues or causes that I think need support, but I have to remind myself that no one person can fight every battle. Forgive yourself from time to time for “not doing enough”. So long as you keep coming back to the table when your pace allows it.


  • This is an instance where I think the folks at nobu casa (paid branch of home assistant development) could dedicate some resources to hardware. Instead of the prebuilt SBC stuff like HA-blue, or yellow or whatever. Create an esp device that just has a reliable microphone, and crank them out. I’d buy one for every room in my house!

    I’ve got an esp army in my greenhouse that runs wLED, and one of them has a mic for doing the sound reactive display stuff, but it’s running wLED, not ESPHome… I wonder how easy it would be to just slap a digital mic on some of the other esp things I’ve got floating around?


  • Nice, I like that Time article better. It reinforces the GINI articles analysis: middle class folks wages didn’t go up with lower class wages. I think that’s sorta a good thing? Ideally the top 10% would not grow, but the bottom 90% would. But help getting to the bottom 50% is definitely not a bad thing.

    Also, I never said the income inequality growth is Biden’s fault. But more that it’s the reason all these articles about how good the “economy” is doing might not be seen in the same light by people who are still struggling.

    We can do better, and I think closing that gap is everyone’s goal, but the methods to achieve it can vary wildly.


  • Thank you for the sources. Some comments:

    1. I don’t think a narrowing of the income inequality between races is the same as a generalized reduction in income inequality across a whole nation. Yes it probably contributes, but it doesn’t tell the story.
    2. your article on GINI tells the exact opposite story that you’re saying here. The headline says it all: pre-tax income inequality has fallen slightly (1.2% or so) but after people pay taxes, the income inequality actually ROSE!! Easily demonstrating the regressive nature of the tax structure. The article mentions some expiring tax breaks for low income households.