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smoke story

Saturday,  02/18/23  09:44 PM

So the other night, I'm sleeping peacefully, and suddenly ... "beep".  What was that?  Hmm, probably nothing.  Or I dreamt it.  I'm drowsing and then again ... "beep".  What?  Oh, crap, it's a smoke detector.  And of course there's no fire, just a low battery.

At right: the culprit.

I'll be the 10 millionth person to note how bad the UX is on these things.  This particular detector is wired into the 110V house power, which was not interrupted, but it has a battery backup, and after I don't know five years the battery ran low, and so it beeps.

First problem, it beeps once a minute.  So you can't easily find it.  Why not beep like every 2 seconds?  This particular smoke detector was located within five feet of four other ones - I kid you not - and it was not easy to figure out which one needed a battery.

Second problem, a red LED blinks too, but only once a minute!  Why not just turn it on?

Third problem, after replacing the battery, it still beeps.  I'm not kidding took about three beeps for it to relax and realize the battery was no longer a problem.  Which I only figured out after changing the battery three times.

Fourth problem, there is a reset button.  It's actually a rocker button with two sides; one side is "reset", the other side is "test".  In the middle of the night who can tell the difference; I accidentally pushed "test", which caused all the wired smoke detectors in the house to sound an alarm.  Yeah.  The test was "successful".

Fifth problem, after investigation, I actually have four count 'em four different types of smoke detectors fire sensors!  There are the wired ones like the one which beeped, but also heat detectors, CO2 detectors, and an entirely separate set of smoke detectors which are battery powered [only] and which communicate via RF with the house alarm system.  WTF?

Anyway the battery is installed, the smoke detector is happy.  And all is well until the next time when I'm awakened... "beep".

 

 

Saturday,  02/18/23  09:53 PM

Welcome back!  Time for a filter pass...

Dave Winer: ChatGPT clearly has a place.  As a sidekick for coding... 

Can't disagree

An oldie but goodie: The Oatmeal: Believe.  I wonder if ChatGPT and it's brethren can digest this yet? 

John Battelle: As AI moves in, let's not forget why we like people.  "My first take on Amazon Go is this: F*cking A, do we really want eggplants and cuts of meat reduced to parameterized choices spit onto algorithmized shelves?

Elon Musk: What we need is TruthGPT


Steven Wolfram: What is ChatGPT doing ... and why does it work?  A long explanation, but the best I've read.  Two takeaways: as with all AI models, the training data is critical, and the randomization leads to unexpected results.  This is the good and the bad of them. 


A reminder from Jamie Zawinsky.  We are now closer to the Y2038 "bug" than we are to Y2K.  In which the *nix systems' internal 32-bit time rolls over to zero. 


Oh my:  The Maserati GranTurismo Is An Unexpected Shock Of Lightning.  Wow, might be my next car :) 

I've mentally flirted with the Lucid Air but while their hardware is amazing their software is well behind Tesla.  With the Maser ... who cares :)

Apropos: Tesla has fully overtaken BMW for US luxury crown.  Who woulda thought?  At first slower, then faster, then wow it happened.

Also this: Tesla recalls 362,758 vehicles over FSD software safety concerns.  Alternative headline: Tesla pushes software update to 362,758 vehicles to improve safety.  Sheesh. 


Leonardo da Vinci's surprisingly accurate experiments with gravity.  The recognition that gravity's effect is an acceleration seems profound. 

No!  WSJ: To increase equity, school districts eliminate honors classes.  Unbelievable.  Will they also eliminate basketball teams? 

Don Surber:  Fetterman Nation.  I link, you read, but quite a bit of this is beyond parody. 

Finally - and you knew I couldn't make a filter pass without crypto - a look at Bitcoin's five maintainers.  In the long run the project structure of Bitcoin might end up being more interesting than the tech. 

Charlie Munger: sometimes I call it crypto crap.

 

 
 

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