This week’s is a dreamy one from Large, off their upcoming record Marine Life.
Continue reading...Towards a smarter home, part 6: Let there be lights (exclusions apply)
Well, that was annoying. Where we left off, I had a running installation of Home Assistant with most of my devices running well on it, and a few other server applications humming along pretty well. Time to install some new devices. One thing I wanted to do right away was smarten my porch light. The ability to turn it on and off both from anywhere in the house and remotely would be extremely useful, especially during the winter dark times. There have been a good number of times that the light was off when I returned home...
Continue reading...Texas Republican House Representative Wesley Hunt’s chief of staff James Kyrkanides loves to spend taxpayer money on hotels
Earlier this week, we covered how Republican House Representative Wesley Hunt likes to stay home and not do his job. Yet, despite all that, his chief of staff, James Kyrkanides, has apparently been racking up quite the hotel tab: James Kyrkanides, the campaign manager for Senate candidate Wesley Hunt, charged taxpayers more than $44,000 in hotel expenses over three years as Hunt’s congressional chief of staff. The charges average $457 per night, four times the national standard rate set by General Services Administration rate for many federal employees, according to a POLITICO analysis of House expense records. That...
Continue reading...Hump-Day Song of the Week: City of Heroes by Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg wrote and released this new song this past weekend dedicated to the people of Minnesota.
Continue reading...Towards a smarter home, part 5: Home movies
When we left off, we had a working Home Assistant instance running in a container on the home server. It works! Used it primarily for the last few days, and it largely replaces the advertising company’s system, at least functionally. It’s not pretty, and it’s not that complicated or set up completely, but it’s okay for now (the automation I created to test ended up working, if after a little tweaking). So, after all that, I decided to take a little diversion. At the start, I had planned on three basic uses for this little home server:...
Continue reading...Towards a smarter home, part 4: That was easy (kinda)
I finally installed Home Assistant. As you may have noted, I encounter a number of reasonably complicated problems beforehand, but may or may not have solved them. Now, with the help of a helper script, I have installed Home Assistant on my server, and it worked like gangbusters. Using this guide (previously linked for installing Proxmox), and specifically the linked helper scripts, I now have a working instance of Home Assistant operating on my local network. It’s pretty cool! It automatically brought in a couple of my devices (specifically for some reason, my Google Chromecast, my Google...
Continue reading...Texas Republican House Representative Wesley Hunt barely ever goes to work, wants a promotion
Nobody wants to work anymore. Hidden in this funnier story is this little tidbit: Clinging to a razor-thin majority, Johnson needed just one more Republican vote to defeat the measure. He kept the vote open for 22 awkward minutes while Democrats jeered and Capitol Police rushed Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) from the airport to the Capitol to cast the deciding vote. Hunt, who recently launched a primary challenge to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), has missed 95 percent of roll-call votes since mid-December, showing up for just three of 58 votes. Now, I’m sure you’re not going to...
Continue reading...Towards a smarter home, part 3: I will be your server today
I used to be a bit of a techie. In the 80s and 90s, experiencing home computers and game consoles unlock their usefulness and capabilities was a wonder. But in those days, you had to be sort of a techie to use any of those devices. The first computers I learned how to use mostly operated on BASIC: from the Commodore 64 at the church, the Apple IIs at the school, and finally my first computer, the much-maligned TRS-80. The BASIC days were cool in their way. One of the best parts of those days was building...
Continue reading...I had no idea this SNL sketch was a reference to The O.C.
Here’s a wild TIL. Back in April 2007 (god we are old), SNL aired this sketch Digital Short The Shooter (or Dear Sister). It was super weird. It’s got Bill Hader writing a letter to his sister, and then while “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap plays, we go to slow motion while Andy Samberg shoots him, everybody gets shot, there’s some cops (also shot). I remember Jack Burden really liking it, and I remember being mystified. What I didn’t know (and I don’t know if Jack Burden knew) is that it’s a parody of an infamous...
Continue reading...Hump-Day Song of the Week: Soft Touch by screensaver
When I first heard this (very recently) I swore it was a way older song. Nope, came out in the tail end of 2025. I guess 2025 was a long time ago, though.
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