From folks I've talked to in real life, it really does seem that way. They're getting their information from Facebook but it's mixed in with the "5G towers are killing all the bees" and the usual anti-vaccine rhetoric. Seeing that erin brockovich has jumped on the anti-data center bandwagon makes it even more suspicious to me.
Linux will be exempt for now. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them try to slip it through later. Legislators in California have learned over the years, and have carved out exemptions in bills such as gun control bills to get it passed, and later classified their exemption as a "loophole" to be closed.
It's been disappointing to see that Toyota, a brand I once trusted, has slipped into spyware/nagware like this. All for the purpose of later selling advertisements. Do we get a discount at the dealer for this "feature?" Of course not. In fact, we get a dealer markup that's often difficult to get rid of.
No wonder car companies are starting to dislike CarPlay. It's less data they can collect from their own customers.
This was a lot of fun to see, especially part 3 where it boots up. Us older guys (me, anyway) still find joy in seeing these old machines we learned our skills on being restored like this.
I'm over 50 now and feel like this as well. Haven't used Claude yet but used Codex a bunch, and it's been SO MUCH fun going over all the old perl & shell scripting stuff that I used to do years ago before I got into healthcare time and morphed to a hobby sysadmin.
Staying up and re-learning what I used to love long ago has given me a new found passion as well. Even if I do vibe code some scripts, at least I have the background now to go through them and make sure they make sense. They're things I'm using in my own homelab and not something that I'm trying to spin up a Github repo for. I'm not shipping anything. I'm refreshing my old skills and trying to bring some of them up to date.
An unfortunate reality is that my healthcare career is going to be limited due to multiple injuries along the way, and I need to try to be as current as I can in case something happens. My safety net is limited.
We have probably 30 of these within 10 miles and it's great. Perfect excuse to go for a walk, get a book, read it, and then return it to one of the others.
Same, and I was starting to feel kind of strange doing anything in html/php in 2026 but then I looked at everything else and realized I'd have to start from scratch again. Plain ol' HTML has worked great.
I also realized that the skill necessary to accomplish this was way above my comfort level. I did see a product called the Bond Bridge Pro that has good reviews. The FCC ID for the fans isn't listed in their database yet but it may still work. I haven't had the time to dig further into it.
XBMC was a lot of fun back in the old days. As I got older, I definitely got lazier with stuff like that, went to an Apple TV, and was happy there. :)
3 ceiling fans by "Carro USA." Supposed to be compatible with smart assistants, turns out there are Siri Shortcuts and that's it. The backend is Tuya, but "Smart Life" which isn't compatible with any of the Homebridge plugins that I have. So aside from using the absolutely horrible Tuya app, or the Carro app (which is simply the Tuya app rebranded) there's no way to digitally control these fans. The smart ceiling fan market is a mess, and so many of the manufacturers rely on what is essentially bargain basement garbage from China. It's sorely disappointing.
Also, the Boxee Box. Worked great with Boxee for a little bit, and then it all fell apart and Boxee ceased to exist.
they were also not meant to scale. if something happens to the Ringmaster, that was it. I remember a couple rings falling apart years ago because of that.