My hallway is shockingly dark when not lit, and the recessed light is so damn harsh I decided to install LED strips up in the corners. But I didn’t want to switch them, so the lights are motion controlled and conditional based on time. During the day, they’re full bright but with a nice color that’s not harsh. At night, only 6 leds light up a nice green so they don’t blast your eyes in the dark.

I have similar control over the kitchen lights but kept the recessed lighting in there. Full bright during the day, dimmed at night.

When the home alarm is triggered, all lights go full bright.

When the garage door is opened, the garage lights turn on.

When the temp in the living room is below 65 in the morning, or at noon, it kicks the heater on until it hits 70.

In the evening, when the outside temp falls below the inside temp, I get sent a message to open the windows. This only triggers in warm months because that crossover doesn’t happen in the cold months. It’s just always warmer inside than out. Similarly, in the mornings, when the temp outside becomes warmer than inside, I get an alert to close the windows. I use Aqara temp sensors on my front and back porches to grab the temps, so it’s very local and takes into account the radiant heat built up from the direct sunlight and works really well. This also has me thinking I might be able to work my contact sensors into the automations too…

I’ve got a contact sensor on my bedroom door to alert me if anyone enters while I’m not home.

My crawl space is encapsulated and I have a large dehumidifier down there. I have a smart switch connected to it so I can have some easy control and monitor power usage. I also have a temp and humidity sensor down there with alerts for if either temp or humidity change too much.

I set up LED lighting on my front porch and have HA turn it on an hour before sunset and off an hour after sunrise. I set it to different colors usually based on holidays, but have it set to a purple that I really like otherwise. Way less harsh than the white porch light.

And of course I can control nearly all the lights in my house from my phone or with Siri.

Having my hallway and kitchen lights be motion activated and brighter/dimmer based on ambient light is fucking great. If you get there you might wind up loving it like I do lol.

Exactly. That’s who his advice is for, but he markets himself as a guru to the poor and they gobble his bullshit right up and spend all their money on his financial peace university that’s just a book full of anecdotes of wealthy people learning how to do what the poors have been forced to do all along.

Yea. I have managed to never carried debt. Without that, what’s this guy got to offer me? In fact, the only thing the guy has to offer is the simplest financial advice there is: spend less than you earn.

But then a poor person comes along and says they can’t and his only advice is ‘earn more money’. Because it’s that easy, obv.

The guy is an out of touch chode who had some privileged upper middle class kid think he was the financial messiah once for saying ‘use a budget’ and let that go to his head.

ADHD, major depressive disorder, and bipolar 2.

Yea. Tired. All the time.

I’m dead

Well, our trip was in March so that’s perfect!

Ah that all makes sense.

Cancellations in particular suck, and are one reason I don’t fly budget airlines when possible. It nearly ruined the trip for my friends when they couldn’t get a flight out that night and put a damper on my birthday weekend for sure. I might mention to them the policy you pasted and see if they want to do anything about the extra few hundred they spent.

Thanks for the informative and high effort reply too! Really appreciate it.

This is in the US? I had a few friends get fucked with last moment cancellations for my birthday trip to Vegas and the airlines didn’t do shit. One, Frontier, had to be strong armed to get them on another flight and still charged them the premium for the new flight.

Sometimes a little cloud cover makes viewing the eclipse even better. I wasn’t too far away from the totality last year and saw this one:

Both shot with my mirrorless cropped from 200mm.

I’m guessing a lot of people in south Ontario had a similar experience to yours.

Neither. I want it on the front, right in the center.

Oh look, someone that doesn’t understand autism. Cool.

Might be a good idea to stop talking rather than keep shoving your foot farther and farther in your mouth.

For the record, ‘spectrum’ doesn’t mean it’s a linear increase in symptoms. It means it can be any unique blend of symptoms, some of which can allow a person to be very independent while still being cripplingly unable to manage some tasks or activities.

I struggled with this a lot when I got a roommate last year that’s paying rent.

I’ve come to terms with it recognizing that we are supporting each other. I’m supporting them by providing them a stable and affordable place to live, and they’re supporting me by helping me make ends meet, especially in a time when I’m unemployed. I’m not profiting off of them or taking a living space from another family. I also plan to calculate the portion of equity they contribute to the mortgage and give it to them whenever I wind up selling.

I’ve always appreciated people who rent out rooms or expand their homes to let people rent a private space with airbnb.

I also don’t think VRBO, home away, house trip, and other companies that support this business model get enough visibility in the criticism against the model.

No this totally makes sense to me.

It doesn’t impact my experience of the story, but there is something to having the next page hidden behind the turn and knowing that it’s right there. When I read an ebook it’s like reading an article. The sensation is different and it loses a touch of excitement without that tactile feeling of ‘the next page’. Pages don’t matter in ebooks either. You adjust the text size and the ‘page’ count is suddenly radically different. I measure my progress in chapters or percentages now.

It makes sense to me why that wouldn’t work for some folks.

I only read fiction, so I always buy it pirate ebooks unless there’s a special edition of something that I am really excited about. I’ve bought all of Brandon Sanderson’s mystery novels in hardcover for example, and I buy the Stormlight books hardcover as well. I’d love to have the entire cosmere in hardcover, or better yet their special edition leather bound hardcovers (for the ones he’s done it with), but it’s just too expansive and expensive to justify.

In an ideal world, a physical copy includes a digital copy.

I’ve got the hardcover for his new mystery novel ordered. Can’t wait for it to arrive and to read it.

And Brandon Sanderson, who wrapped the series after Jordan died and is an amazing author himself.

I now use my porn account to engage with folks on my niche subs and race threads.