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I've tried using HA a couple years ago and gave up. It was too complicated to run it in a Pi4 - I'm an experienced software engineer, familiar with containers and Linux.

I was trying to get some of the IoT I have at home like pool equipment, lights, HVAC, blinds, etc. Some of the setup were an uphill battle looking for more information in forums and trying to figure out what was broken.

Recently I decided over the weekend to use Claude and write a small app that controls my pool equipment and then deployed it using Cloudflare Zero Trust (kind of a reverse VPN). What a joy! Not only I had lots of fun reverse engineering my pool equipment API (I didn't want to depend on existing libraries - which I know exist) but I managed to create a fun and custom UI with React that my kids and wife love using. For example, whenever the pool heater is on, it adds an animated flame to the UI and change the background to a red-ish color. Plus it has a bar chart that shows the pool temp progression (takes hours to heat it up) with an animated volcano colors. The theme of the app is beach/pool vibe.

I don't think anyone here would be that excited if we were using the lower-denominator that HA turns out to be. I know it's a very cool automation tool, but just not very exciting and pretty obscure to configure every equipment I have at home.

I've been thinking about writing a blog post with the details of my fun project, let me know if anyone is interested in this. So far I've done the blinds and pool equipment. Next will be HVAC and lights. Took me 1-2 weeks total for each using Claude in my spare time.

I agree with your statement on quality control issues. Also fake cigars are a huge problem. I've heard about many cases of cigars made in Cuba by "freelancers" and then sold in repurposed boxes and labels. Those aren't terrible cigars, but definitely not great.

I'll try those 2 you mentioned and see if it's to my taste. Dona Flor, made in Brazil, are pretty decent. Unfortunately they are not easy to come by near where I live.

I've been smoking cigars for the past 15 years. I was lucky enough to have smoked only cuban cigars (which are legal where I'm from), so I know them very well.

Nicaragua and Dominican Republic are garbage compared to Cubans, still to this day. Several times while in the US (where I've lived in the past few years) I tried to smoke non-cuban cigars. Not once I found something that was remotely close to the worse cuban I've had.

My basic understanding is because of two factors: 1. The tobacco doesn't grow anywhere else like it does in Cuba. It's an island with very specific combination of soil and weather that can't be replicated. The tobacco leafs are huge in Cuba and that makes a big difference when making a cigar which ideally should use as few leafs as possible. 2. The best workers that know how to select, blend and roll a cigar are still all in Cuba. Other countries tried to replicate but they don't come close in terms of skills and knowledge.

I don't have sources for the two factors above but my experience tells me it adds up.

I only heard people complimenting non-cuban cigars here in the US. Nowhere else. Which sounds fair or else the entire cigar industry would have gone bankrupt without access to the best stuff. Overtime you won't find people in the US who understands what a cuban cigar is like because they have no exposure to it.

Beautiful indeed. It still baffles me how some people have a such gift with words. They can tell stories and make you have feelings, just magical. I know it's a lot of hard work to write like this.

I can write code alright, but I couldn't write words like the author, even if I practice for 100 years.

It has to be a gift.

I see with completely different eyes here. This is a sort of manifesto that tells me where the heart of the founders is.

It also inspired me to do better and look at my own company and myself as a fellow founder. I agree with almost everything he said and I'd like to see my company as being a "Calm Company" too. It's a great opportunity to measure my ideas against other's.

I wish more entrepreneurs would post like that, even if it's not 100% selfless. I think the trade off of getting more eye balls for sharing his vision is totally fair.

Time and again I keep seeing articles like this in HN and it's the reason I'm so addicted. It's such a good filter on all the chaotic crap it's out there.

All of a sudden the saying "eat your own dog food" takes a twist and is no longer fun.

I can't really disagree with you. Although I want to believe this problem is more exacerbated with LLMs than with human-tutors.

I have no evidence other than hundreds of hours using ChatGPT.

I absolutely have the same overall feeling, when the task at hand is related to text processing (including understanding and spinning off new takes or ideas from it).

But when the task at hand involves logical thinking, that's when I believe the LLMs of today are still a very much work in progress.

So I'm skeptical of trying to use them as tutors for now. I'm sure things will evolve quite quickly from now.

It's actually worse than that because although LLMs are capable of a lot, they still hallucinate quite frequently and sometimes are just plain stupid.

Recently I was trying to manipulate data in Google Sheets and was using ChatGPT to help. In the beginning is was fantastic, I was very productive because I didn't have to stop and think about formulas, read crappy documentation, or analyze data transformation. ChatGPT just gave me the right answer in a split second, as long as I kept asking the right questions.

Then I stumbled upon a particular issue that wasn't really too complicated but ChatGPT could not give me a correct answer. Unknowingly I spent 3 days trying to fix problems with the solution and every time I got an answer that was slightly wrong, not in subtle ways.

I have 20 years experience as a software engineer and still, I continued to waste time in this loop. After 3 days I decided to apply my engineering skills and solved the matter in 30 min. Now I know the solution and it was way simpler than I thought.

What surprised me was how dumb the whole process was. My questions certainly weren't the problem - as bad as they possibly were, the solution wasn't too far off. Not only ChatGPT had become a crutch but it put me in a situation that no human-tutor would ever put me.

So removing the pain of quick interactions with a tutor has benefits but the technology is not quite ready to be considered as true guidance in forming (or even helping) someone's understanding of a subject.

I've been using ChatGPT a lot for general language but when it requires logical thinking it falls pretty flat.

"These galaxies are so old, they are likely still in the process of being formed."

This makes no sense to me. Older galaxies should be formed long time ago, no?

Then suddenly you buy a car that has several kg of equipment that are not yours, but theirs, just so you could activate it with a subscription at a later point in time. Great! But now I'm the one paying gas/electricity to carry that extra load around that does not belong to me.

How is it possible that they can get away with it without any lawsuits? I'd want to be compensated for carrying other people's crap around town.

If a feature requires constant development (like self-driving) then it makes more sense. But even that has been subverted these days with SaaS companies that charge a subscription but only offer new features as upgrades so your version doesn't really improve that much unless you pony up.

How much more $ do these people really need?

I've been following this "good example" for both my kids who are 10 and 2 years old and I can say it works very well. At least for the addictive behavior. We still allow them to watch movies and cartoons plus games in TVs and iPads but no phones for them.

My wife and I have a policy that when we're eating no screens are allowed unless it's an emergency. I think this probably has the biggest effect of all. Also we have zero social networks (except professional ones).

I'm so tired of going to restaurants and seeing the entire family looking at their screens. The bigger the kid the bigger the screen. Technology really has killed social interaction and I try my best to raise my kids out of this mass hypnosis everybody seems to be in.

When we go out to eat my table is always kind of a mess because my two year old is all over the place. And that's fine. We can deal with it and we have some fun. I really don't buy he argument to giving kids a screen during meals so the adults can talk. Kids must engage in any conversation they want or simply sit and listen to adults talking. That's how they learn. If they're constantly zooming out then they won't learn how to behave properly.

I find it too convenient that adults who never had problems with this kind of addiction (because those devices did not exist) continue to feed their kids with algorithms.

Once my kids get to an age that they are more responsible I'll handle them a device and set boundaries. Since we (the adults) have been showing boundaries since the beginning I think it will work just fine.

So yeah, lead by example!

I watched a movie today and ended up ordering pop corn + soda + water. 1 pop corn, 1 soda, 1 water freaking bottle (250ml). They charged me $30 + tips.

I think National Geographic (which I'm a subscriber) can charge 10x more without losing 90% of it's audience. It's the price to pay to receive good articles at your home and it's definitely worth tons more than drinking and eating junk in the dark.

I definitely relate to that. I only started saving money seriously (with proper planning) after reading about FIRE (financial independence retire early) in a blog. Reading about that idea completely changed my mind about the true purpose of putting money aside while I was still young.

Before reading about FIRE I thought the idea of retiring silly because I was 100% sure I'd never stop working, even after turning 65. So saving money never made sense to me.

The blog about FIRE explained with a total different point of view which is not about retiring really but it's about having the choice to do only the work you really want to and being independent to make your own choices regardless of needing a paycheck.

That idea completely changed (part of) my life.

I have to say that improving the battery by 11% is not nearly enough. I have a Framework Intel 12th Gen running Mint and I can't use it for more than 3h without having to plug it in. I've followed all instructions on your forums but it's just horrible! Don't get me wrong, I love my laptop, but I hate the battery performance. My wife has a MacBook Air which only requires charging every 3-4 says.

I wish you spent more effort in fixing it at the software level, whatever it takes.

I relate to your current state of mind. I wasn't sure either before I had my first child. I didn't particularly like kids, but wondered what would it be like.

Then I had my first child by accident at 33 and it was by far the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm glad I didn't wait longer to decide rationally to have kids.

I can confirm a lot of the comments in here are true, for good or bad. But most definitely an overall good experience with love and fun trumping some minor annoyances.

(Writing this at 3am while my 3yrs old struggles to sleep in between me and wife)

In my experience this isn't true at all. Having kids really is a blank slate and it's up to you to decide how you want to raise yours. I do a lot of things different than my parents did to me, including being more thoughtful about being a good friend, not just their parents.

I didn't have the best experience with my parents either. Not that I hated them but they never felt like friends to me. My kids will decide how they feel about me when they get older but I'll do everything in my power to let them know that I'm genuinely interested in being friends with them.

I'm sorry you didn't have good memories with your parents but I came here to say that this should not be an excuse to not having kids if that's something that you're considering.

There's a similar interesting solution here:

https://forum.moddevices.com/t/ai-research-at-mod/8368

I have at least one example of Airbnb ignoring a bad review. I had a pretty bad experience in Washington DC once and left a review to warn future guests. To my surprise such review never came online. I checked for several weeks after and saw new reviews popping up on the same property but my review was nowhere. I still use Airbnb but just lower my expectations by a huge amount because according to them everyone is having a fantastic experience. Just like Instagram... Thanks internet!

Which location are you seeing those rates?

MOD Devices has filed for insolvency in Germany and instead of playing games it opens up the door giving full transparency about what's happening and the possible outcomes.

I don't want to deposit fear into your dreams. You should follow what your heart tells you. But not going all in was probably the smartest decision you've made. Good luck!

The future is still bright. I was lucky enough to have two business going and the second one is a thriving consulting software company. Sorry if it looked like I was in a dire situation personally. Not really the case.

I appreciate the sympathy, really. The thing that I probably regret the most is really the time invested. That's the only thing I can't make up for. Even if I try to look back fondly of the learning experience I'm still severely burnt by it.

What I did in fact learn was to give absolutely tons of respect for people who pull this off. There's a lot of trash talk articles about Peloton and other struggling hardware companies but they have no clue how freaking difficult it is. Now at least I can say I do.

-- Edited for clarity

I'm a co-founder of a niche multi-effect pedalboard company and we're filing for bankruptcy in Germany this very week.

It's not only the crazy price changes and random stocking issues. Small players have zero leverage with suppliers and are a much weaker link in this whole chaos. Good luck trying to find investors willing to put money to drive growth.

Hardware startups is absolutely brutal. No surprise so many fail after a "successful" Kickstarter campaign.

I'm actually surprised we're only going under nearly 30 months after the pandemic started. I would bet that millions of people will be unemployed because a gazillion of small companies will shut off in the next 18 months.

I'll never start (or work for) a hardware company for the rest of my life. Software is so much a better business to invest that makes me cry just thinking how much money and years I lost of my life.

Absolutely agree. Having a number that brings joy to a specific group of people is way better than having an obvious "lots of X digits" kind of number. I had a mobile phone for 10+ years that was composed of a sequence of 2-digit perfect square numbers. Like 6481-1649 for example. I have many many friends that to this day can call my old number just by remembering the square roots which were pretty easy to memorize. Funny thing happened when the whole country added a leading 9 digit to increase the amount of possible users in the network. It was just sweet because it meant an extra 3 as a square root to my number.

I've moved to a different country a few years later so I lost that number but at least I managed to transfer it to a good friend who appreciated the math part of it. He still gets calls, many years later, from friends looking up for me.

I relate a lot to your comments. I'm currently in a situation which seems to be the pinnacle of the trajectory you described and I'm slowly coming to that exact conclusion about not enjoying the work but just the hobby. My passion for that hobby brought me here and the only logical step is to sell my business and move on. It's going to be such a challenge to let it go but I only look back at what I built with pride and good memories. There's no remorse or resentment because it's a hobby that I continue to enjoy and my professional life still gravitates around it. If you enjoy the ride, which I certainly did, there's nothing wrong in projecting your career off that passion for that hobby.

It's funny how my brain reacts to all caps very similarly as if someone is literally shouting in front of me during a conversation. Must be the decades of internet forums and emails.

The first time you shouted my eye was twitching. By the third time I could almost feel a stroke coming from the increase in noise pollution.

Humans are so susceptible... pfff

Back to the original argument of this article: it does feel sometimes that there are as many stars in that patch as stupidity in our human friends in the current world we live in. Sigh.

I have to stop and comment on parent's behavior. You saw a comment that was poorly written and took on the job to rewrite and extract the good part so it could be understood by the general public. It's such a nice gesture and at the same time shows a lot of initiative and attitude that I wish people in my team had it hard coded in their kernels. Your team, whoever they are, are lucky to have you.