Readit NewsAs someone who recently moved, they were pretty low on the priority list to get them reinstalled, but it was nice once it was done.
I seriously considered obtaining and setting up lights that I could schedule to come on at the time I needed to wake up.
No kubernetes backend architecture and AWS pods required here!
No smart devices needed to change Color/brightness dynamically.
Once everything is set up and switches are magnetically attched to walls, it works just like the dumb lights, but without 230V all over the place. Just need to swap coin battery once a year.
Plus, you can go fancy with colors, dimming and stuff, if you get the urge.
(also, if you ever had home fire because mismatched dimmer switch combusted, you would not want that stuff anywhere near your home)
I also get a huge boost from tweaking the colors. It's very relaxing and dramatically improves the ambience.
If you can't see the appeal there, idk what to tell ya...
Using a phone to control them IS a drag, but there are remotes that can toggle through scenes etc. it's fantastic.
Why have any technology at all? Why goto the park and fly a kite when you can just pop a pill?
> Why goto the park and fly a kite when you can just pop a pill?
Weird tangent. I much rather go to the park and chill instead of tinkering away on my smart home setup…
I've used smart switches to join otherwise disconnected electrical lines without rewiring my house.
Compare two fans I replaced with a combo fan and light: One is WiFi controlled, other is a remote.
I didn't want to run another electrical line and expand the box.
Disconnecting the wall switch "always on" was optional. The remote takes over both to allow fan or light. There are 5 switches controlling my main living space. Only the fan is "smart". These switches are not co-located.
With a remote: We rarely use the light or fan. With a WiFi (in main bedroom) the light is used daily. Fan can be turned off from the wall, but not on (by choice). Fan also shuts off on schedule.
Ignoring fan costs: Two smart switches cost $25. Can be done in under an half an hour in main living space.
Compare running a new wire: 25ft wire ~$20 New Box: $5 New switch: $17 I need to crawl into attic, move insulation. Also run the wire through the wall.
Is it required? No. Does it make the system more usable? Spouse doesn't know/care. "It just works"
When it doesn't: it's two steps. If you're already doing this: the extra step is nothing lost.
Here's some questions I ask myself:
For $25 what annoyance can I fix this month? And I try to just do it.
Do I have an hour? Can I do it now?
What does this cost over time? This is not of a gamble (I spent much longer than I'd like to admit writing this post).
I know my time is extremely limited and while automating things like this might be a fun project I rather spend my time sitting in a park and looking at the trees. But this attitude also leads to living with unnecessary annoyances for a prolonged time sometimes
While once we are in the situation we can do very practical things and have agency to react to and improve our situation.
I once read a French „practical philosopher“ who expressed it much better than me, but yea essentially the most terrifying situations are in our imagination.
> Could you expand on this? I can’t think of a scenario where that is the case.
Pretty straightforward: there's no unlimited wellspring of young people from poor countries for rich countries to tap, there is a limited amount. Those poor countries also have declining birth rates, they're just a few decades behind on the trend. It's unlikely there are enough poor young people satisfy the labor demands of all the depopulating rich countries.
So the rich countries suck up all the available young "doctors/garbos/crop-harvesters" from the poor countries. That leaves the poor countries with screwed up, unbalanced demographics (without necessarily even fixing the screwed up, unbalanced demographics of the rich countries), and they're in an even worse position to deal with the problem, since they're poor.
So poor African grandma's doctor moves to American to treat rich American Grandma, and African grandma gets to do without.
> Ha, how will you track it?
How does the government track anything? They come up with rules and definitions and bureaucracy, then implement them.
And the types of records needed to implement the idea for 90%+ of cases have been kept for 100+ years.
> sub-Saharan African nations (many of which are on food aid) have fertility well above replacement levels
So which is it ? Are they above or below replacement levels?
> How does the government track anything?
While I get where you are aiming at this didn’t work in China and they have arguably the most perfect surveillance state worldwide - I don’t think this is desirable, the tradeoff in freedom and security is just too big.