You can configure HA to use an external database, so you could (presumably) config two instances to use the same DB. Not sure how much conflict that would cause for entities that are only attached to one of those instances, but it seems like both should have the same access to state data and history. Could probably even set one instance up with read-only DB access to limit data conflicts, although I imagine HA will complain about that.

Even with an external database, HA still uses its internal DB for some things, so I don’t think you’d ever get identically mirrored instances.

If you’re already running Pihole, I’d look at other things to do with the Pi.

https://www.adafruit.com/ has a bunch of sensors you can plug into the Pi, python libraries to make them work, and pretty good documentation/examples to get started. If you know a little python, it’s pretty easy to set up a simple web server just to poll those sensors and report their current values. Only slightly more complicated to set up cron jobs to log data to a database and a web page to make graphs.

It’s pretty straightforward to put https://www.home-assistant.io/ in a docker on a Pi. If you have your own local sensors, it will keep track of them, but it can also track data from external sources, like weather & air quality. There a bunch of inexpensive smart plugs ($20-ish) that will let you turn stuff on/off on a schedule or in response to sensor data.

IMO, Pi isn’t great for transport-intensive services like radarr or jellyfin, but, with a Usb HD/SSD might be an option.

That’s my point: fusion is just another heat source for making steam, and with these experimental reactors, they can’t be sure how much or for how long they will generate heat. Probably not even sure what a good geometry for transferring energy from the reaction mass to the water. You can’t build a turbine for a system that’s only going to run 20 minutes every three years, and you can’t replace that turbine just because the next test will have ten times the output.

I mean, you could, but it would be stupid.

If you’re not sure how the fire works, it seems kind of stupid to build a turbine for it.

I’ve always understood 2 as 2 physically different media - i.e., copies in different folders or partitions of the same disk is not enough to protect against failure of that disk, but a copy on a different disk does. Ideally 2 physically different systems, so failure/fire in the primary system won’t corrupt/damage the backup.

Used to be that HDDs were expensive and using them as backup media would have been economically crazy, so most systems evolved backup media to be slower and cheaper. The main thing is that having /home/user/critical, /home/user/critical-backup, and /home/user/critical-backup2 satisfies 3 copies, but not 2 media.

3: RAID-1 pair + manual periodic sync to an external HD, roughly monthly. Databases synced to cloud.

2: external HD is unplugged when not syncing

1: External HD is a rotating pair, swapped in a bank box, roughly quarterly. Bank box costs $45/year.

If the RAID crashes, I lose at most a month. If the house burns down, I lose at most 3 months. Ransomware, unless it’s really stealthy, I lose 3 months. If I had ongoing development projects, a month (or 3) would be a lot to lose, and I’d probably switch to weekly syncs and monthly swaps, but for what I actually do - media files, financial and smart-home data, 3 months would not be impossible to recreate.

All of this works because my system is small enough to fit on one HDD. A 3-2-1 system for tens of TB starts to look a lot like an enterprise system.

I want to know why it’s not “Trump Land.”

Proton is only encrypted between proton users. Proton mail to/from gmail or outlook is plain text, unless the recipient sets up PGP, and you can do E2EE with PGP over any host.

I have 8 Z-wave devices now, including a couple “long range” devices. With the first couple, I would sometimes have trouble with the farthest, battery-powered device dropping out of the network occasionally, but that hasn’t happened as I’ve added more devices. I fought with pairing the initial devices - clicking the right series of buttons at the same time as telling HA to look for devices to join - but all the recent devices have just has a QR code - scan it into HA, and the device just shows up when I turn it on. I don’t know how much of this difference between new and old is my learning curve vs better product support, but I am really happy with my Z-waves now.

Z-wave rather than wifi so I know they aren’t phoning home.

TY. Looks like the T6 is pro-only. Googling around, it looks like ventilation control may be one of the things that separate their pro-level T6/T10 from their DIY-level T5/T9. That’s disappointing.

Does the Honeywell T6 give you separate control of temperature and fan? That is, can you turn air circulation on/off, even when the temperature wouldn’t trigger heating/cooling?

I’ve been watching pm2.5 in my house, and the HVAC filter does a pretty good job of keeping it down if I run the fan, but that fan takes a lot of energy, and I’d like to turn it off when the air is pretty clean.

I feel like ‘normal’ politicians are more beholden to old-guard oligarchs, because those are the ones that brought their parents and grandparents to power. The people who’ve been funding them through their whole, 50-year careers. Those oligarchs have generally learned to avoid the public eye, including politicians that attract public scrutiny.

Donald Trump doesn’t care about relationships, heritage, or established trust. He just wants money and flattery, right now, in great volume, and that makes him uniquely susceptible to new money tech bros.

First time you do something is always harder. OpenAI just didn’t think it was 1000x harder and thought they’d have more time to cash in.

Myself, I think that being able to throw billions of dollars at hardware, and their focus on next-quarter results discouraged them from putting in the human effort to analyze and optimize their process. It turns out there were some fantastic optimizations to do.

I’m from a reasonably upper-middle class background; reasonably successful in a top-10 metro. So’s my brother, but he’s gone the McMansion & country club route where I’ve tended more modest. I don’t like visiting them. Their environment just rings all my class warfare buttons, triggers all my “you don’t belong here” warnings & the obsequiousness at the restaurants & venues they prefer is just gross. I mean, I’m a middle-aged white guy, dressed like all the other mf’s in the neighborhood, so I do “belong;” it just feels wrong.

Everybody gotta find their own comfort zone, and we have to appreciate that our friends & family can have different tastes. Sometimes, that does mean dressing up in funny costume & hanging out in uncomfortable spaces to share in their joy, but there’s tactful ways to explain/prepare your fam for unfamiliar situations, and there’s “Come here and let me dress you.”

Yeah, I considered E2EE. Even set up PGP keys in Thunderbird and installed https///mailvelope.com . For E2EE to really be viable, your correspondents have to comply, and none of the people I email with have any interest. I even email with someone on proton, and they always reply to me in the clear.

There’s a lot of domains you can get for the price of a single coffee, if you don’t insist on it being cute, readable, or one of the legacy TLDs. Between purelymail and a .top domain, it’s $15/year.

I bit the bullet this month & bought a domain so I can assign mail handling and change providers without changing my email address. Currently using https://purelymail.com/ because they’re $10/year for as many addresses & domains as you want “within reason.” It’s apparently just one guy with some AWS instances, but it was very straightforward to set up.

Exactly. Galaxy brains on Wall Street realizing that nvidia’s monopoly pricing power is coming to an end. This was inevitable - China has 4x as many workers as the US, trained in the best labs and best universities in the world, interns at the best companies, then, because of racism, sent back to China. Blocking sales of nvidia chips to China drives them to develop their own hardware, rather than getting them hooked on Western hardware. China’s AI may not be as efficient or as good as the West right now, but it will be cheaper, and it will get better.

How long do you think those advertisers will stay when it turns out they’ve paid $1M in advertising with no change in sales?

That’s the mistake: putting it in the open ban list instead of the shadow ban list.

Dev acting in #resistance or dev making an honest mistake? I suppose we’ll never know.