• Made so much progress with learning this weekend. Got Home Kit Bridge working after learning way too much about mdns, built some iOS notifications w/ automation options and resuscitating some forgot NFC tags. Got power forecasting working, excited to start playing with “now’s a good time to run the washer” type notifications.


  • Aqara Hub and Home Assistant

    The Aqara sensors and such have been super reliable in my HomeKit environment, highly recommend. But, as I’m currently trying to solve what should be a simple use case, I’m getting into the weeds of Home Assistant.

    I’ve spent a grand total of about 4 hours in Home Assistant so far and I’m sure it will get easier but this is definitely not something you’d give to your mom to run her home (not that Apple’s HomeKit is that much better but at least it doesn’t use terms like “entities” and such).

    Anyway, this is to say that I really wanted to try to get my Aqara stuff connected to Home Assistant. I spent an hour or so digging through docs and YouTube videos and then finally found this (literally) 1 minute long movie that says to just remove the existing Aqara stuff from your HomeKit and it will show up in Home Assistant.

    I was admittedly a bit nervous, but I started simply by removing my G2h Camera/Hub from HomeKit and a second later all of my Aqara stuff disappeared from HomeKit and showed up in Home Assistant. Granted, I had to go around and figure out which room each sensor was in again but that wasn’t too bad.


  • It is apparently way too much to ask to only run my Roborock vacuum at 10AM each morning *if* no one is home. Seems like such a trivial condition to but now I’m deep in the weeds of home assistant trying to Rube Goldberg my way to a solution. We were promised jet packs (shakes fist at sky)!


  • Tech vs. Democracy

    The Outsourcing of Democracy

    It’s not news to me that the intersection of technology, democracy, and power has reached a critical junction but I now have a much better sense of what’s at stake. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been diving deep into Marietje Schaake’s “The Tech Coup,” watching Ronan Farrow’s “Surveilled” documentary, and following Paris Marx’s excellent podcast series on tech billionaires. I see this pattern emerging: our democratic institutions are ceding control to unelected tech leaders and their companies.

    Perhaps the most alarming revelation is just how much the U.S. has outsourced core democratic functions to private industry. From voting systems to law enforcement, and now to the regulation of these technologies themselves, we have created a system where private companies aren’t just participating in governance—they’re actively shaping it. At play here is who gets to make the decisions that effect our daily lives..

    The Surveillance State

    I was especially put off by the privacy implications here. While Biden put out an executive order that in theory at least prevents government surveillance of citizens, the private sector has filled this gap with mindblowing tech. The proliferation of spyware tools (like Pegasus, which the FBI purchased) and the thriving data brokerage industry have lead to a surveillance infrastructure that operates with minimal oversight. When private companies can freely buy and sell personal information, train facial recognition systems on government-collected data, and deploy surveillance technology globally, we’ve essentially and collectively given a huge ok, fine, just go-ahead to the surveillance state.

    One of the most insidious aspects of this “tech coup” is how insights or knowledge/learning about critically transformative technologies like AI remain locked within corporate environments. While CEOs and employees gain valuable knowledge about these systems’ capabilities and risks, public officials and citizens are left in the dark. This creates an asymmetry of power where those folks we’ve elected to make decisions about technology’s role in society are often the least accountable to the public.

    Also, the role of private tech companies in international relations adds another layer of complexity. When companies like Google or Starlink provide internet access to countries during government shutdowns, they’re not just offering a service—they’re engaging in de facto diplomacy. Yes, it’s almost certainly a good thing when citizens of oppressive governments are provided Internet connectivity but the private companies but having these companies involved in international affairs raises should raise question about accountability and motivation.

    Reclaiming Democratic Control

    Per Schaake’s recommendations, the solution isn’t to reject technology or government involvement but to reestablish democratic control over these systems. This means:

    1. Creating robust regulatory frameworks for systemically important tech companies
    2. Building public technology infrastructure (a “public stack”) rather than relying solely on private solutions
    3. Extending public accountability requirements to private companies performing government functions
    4. Implementing meaningful transparency requirements for tech companies, especially regarding data center development (Shaake explains how companies like Amazon and MS hide behind fake company names when building out huge data centers in small town America) and algorithm audits
    5. Strengthening enforcement mechanisms for existing regulations

    The Path Forward

    I was glad that Schaake offered some suggestion on what we could do to solve the problems she presents. Granted, the page count of the solution section is dwarfed by her (excellent and detailed) explanations of the problems. Solving this isn’t about blind trust in government or wholesale rejection of private enterprise. Rather, it’s about giving citizens a broader role in technological development. We need to create spaces for public debate about technology’s role in society, elect leaders who understand these challenges, and hold them accountable for serving the public interest.

    The internet was once envisioned as a democratizing force, but it’s increasingly becoming a tool for corporate profit and surveillance. If we can more collectively get our heads around what’s at stake and taking action to restore democratic oversight, we can work toward a future where technology serves the many, not just the few.


  • Watched Ronan Farrow’s Surveilled last night on HBO, uncanny how well it pairs with Schaake’s The Tech Coup which I’m just finishing. If you enjoyed the documentary on spyware, definitely give Schaake’s Tech Coup a read: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691241173/the-tech-coup


  • Crossposting Mastodon->Bluesky

    I found a handy node script from Alex Hyett that will grab whatever I post to my Mastodon account and post it to my bluesky account for me. The less I have to think about this stuff the better so I have the node script restart at boot up using this

    Install pm2 for node (npm install -g pm2)
    Type “pm2 startup” into the command line
    Paste in the resulting command as instructed.
    Change directories to where your app exists.
    Type “pm2 start filename.js”
    Type “pm2 save”

    Seems to be working. We’ll see.


  • I’ve been playing in bands for 30 years and can’t imagine trying to make a living at it. Now I’ve got a kid who is an amazing songwriter/musician. It’s heartbreaking to think how undervalued his skill is in this world. Good read: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/28/band-people-franz-nicolay-book-review


  • I like this take from 404 media and agree w/ much of this post on Bluesky, Mastodon and threads: “..But I have been impressed with the tools that the open source development community is building to bridge the gap between the AT protocol and ActivityPub, and I’m hopeful that some mixture of Bluesky and Mastodon will eventually serve most of my needs as a social media user…”


  • Just replaced the gas piston in my 20-year old Herman Miller Aeron. Took less than 5 minutes, hope to get another 20 years out of this guy. Talk about a BIFL worthwhile investment, this chair has paid for itself several times over.


  • I’ve been cleaning up, pruning/purging my locally hosted music library and rediscovering some gems. This week’s finds: Zero 7’s Simple Things, Thievery Corp’s Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi and Richest Man in Babylon, and a real blast from the past surfaced from a recent reissue, The Brand New Heavy’s Brother Sister.


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