Nah, that’s just a clue

I’d be curious to see what system resources are required for Alexa

Yeah, apparently Barb was a real chatty cathy

the problem is greedy oligarchs that don’t see a problem with you having 0 social mobility.

Bullseye. It’s a fine line to walk of keeping us in a spot where we can just barely afford to live (sort of) while making sure there’s no way we could possibly have enough to intrude on the upper spheres.

My mom always talked about the party lines growing up in Florida in the 60s, and how she could never get a call out because “Barbara Snyder talked too much and always tied up the lines” lol. Apparently it was common for one party line per block or something like that. Iirc it wasn’t too common to have a private line until much later, as the phone company had to run dedicated lines back to the central office and it didn’t always happen until much later.

Don’t forget about party lines, where you could pick up the phone on your neighbors.

I could see that, but you have to remember that the average consumer doesn’t have an automation hub or get deep into the automation sphere, and as such many of these products are designed to be standalone devices that can be controlled from a phone. Often enough they can be the only ‘smart’ device in a home.

That all said, a dumb thermostat like your suggesting would still require a small CPU, ram, embedded OS, and network stack/hardware to operate and communicate, so I don’t know how far the savings would go. I can’t imagine the processing power on something like a nest is that powerful as it is.

Yes, the C/blue wire is common, basically a neutral for the 24v system and necessary for more digital thermostats to keep the thermostat powered (some can work without the c wire, but it depends on the unit feeding power). The old mechanical ones work on the tilting mercury thing or copper coil for temp sensing, and only require the red wire to touch their respective wires to call whatever function, but the digital ones do the same thing on a switching level. I know there are additional wire sometimes for multistage heat and zoning, but as far as I know it’s the same principle. I’ll be honest I’m an electrician by trade and not an HVAC guy, and I know some of the more intricate systems can deviate from this, but your average residential system should be similar or damn near the same as my original comment (granted my experience is in Southern CA, so there are possibly regional differences with oil furnaces, radiator systems, etc).

Heat pumps are an entirely different story, and I don’t have too much experience with them, most of the splits I’ve seen come with their own remote controls. I was talking on more traditional wall heaters, central air/furnace/forced air, etc.

Thermostats are Barney basic in function, touch the red to the hot to call heat, red to yellow for cool, and red to green for the fan, then open the circuit when the temp is where you want it. Kinda sounds like a fun project.

Ah gotcha, thanks

T break?

They had me and my brother on I think it was Concerta, and yeah there was something not right about that stuff. Adderall was great for getting shit done, but no way I’d want to take it everyday.

Dude, all the same here. I tested insanely high on that aptitude test in elementary school and was placed in their version of honors. But the teachers would get pissed because I wouldn’t do any homework, yet somehow aced all my tests and scored minimum 90th percentile on all standardized tests. I just paid attention to the lessons but had no interest in the busy work.

I ended up just doing the CA proficiency exam and got out of high school on my 17th birthday, and then got a diploma at 25 to make my mom happy.

Truth. I remember being in school in the 90s when they were giving Ritalin to everyone who didn’t want to sit still in class. Shit was wild. And then you have me, with a healthy case of ADD but since I wasn’t a social butterfly, that just meant I wasn’t motivated.

Quite the opposite, it’s almost a requisite at this point

How do those boots taste?

Almost like a contract of sorts, one that is socially acceptable…

The Hardly Boys: Two young whispersnappers with a knack for solving mysteries!