Commentor / Seattle visitor Yutsano:
So I’m making an executive decision. Tuesday January 20th 7pm [PST] at Indo Cafe unless other locations/times are more suitable.
Quibble as necessary in the comments. As at all BJ meetups, lurkers friends & friends-of-friends are welcome!
mikej
I’m in. Executive decision is the only way to get these things planned.
Tommy
Jealous of you folks. I wonder if there are enough people in the St. Louis metro area for us to try to put together a Meetup? I realize this time at night maybe isn’t the best time to gauge interest, but alas maybe I should write up a comment about trying to organize a Meetup and post it throughout the day in Open Threads for a week or two and see if there is any interest.
BAtFFP
I’m in!
srv
Who said Romneyism isn’t a thing?
Truth to Power!
Yatsuno
@mikej: I remember this. But I was hoping someone might take a lead here. Oh and thanks to our shit budget not getting Olympia or Hawai’i. Not really happy about that.
I’m staying at the Best Western by the Needle. I also lost both yours and CaseyL’s phone numbers. Can you both drop me a message when you get the chance?
Amir Khalid
Can’t make it, sorry. I’m no longer well enough to drive. But everyone have fun, and don’t forget to send pix.
I may have suffered a hardware malfunction on my Lenovo laptop: the wireless network adapter seems to have died in mid-session, and now it can’t detect wi-fi signals. Am I now in need of a new laptop?
Amir Khalid
@srv:
Yes! I am so prepared to believe that under a President Romney and a Republican Congress, wealth inequality in America is doomed!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: It’s probably best anyway that you can’t drive, they haven’t finished the bridge from KL to Seattle. It’s a long boring drive anyway.
Check the web and see if there’s some diagnostic programs for the laptop.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: TAX CUTS!!! The solution to all of life’s problems.
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: How about it. This study has been noted some places since it came out a few days ago, but it should be on every liberal site, “sticky posted” to the top of each page. Because this is happening (and didn’t we all already know this!):
What was that Mitt about the 47% and the “takers?” Bullshit Mitt you are too smart to know the reality is actually what I quoted above. Middle class people like myself and tens and tens of millions that make a lot less than me, via state and local taxes (like when they buy milk for their kids) are footing the bills so when you dial 911 a police officer shows up. So you can get one of your gosh knows how many vehicles you own to one of your mansions and the “car elevator.”
I know, world’s small violin playing for you Mitt that you pay a lot in taxes. You know why, you are fucking super rich. You feel “put upon.” Well Mitt I feel put upon that because of tax cuts to folks like you my state raised our sales tax so I pay more to buy a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread.
I am pissed I had by far, by leaps and bounds, the best year for my business. So in my so small way I trying to stimulate the economy. I put new tires on my car. Paid more in taxes. Bought a 7.1 foot cubic freezer to put a quarter cow in I bought from the local small farmer/rancher. I paid more in taxes. The rancher paid more in taxes.
You know Mitt that adds up for somebody like me, and guess what. Sure it goes to local services that I both use and need, but it is also MONEY OUT OF MY POCKET that I would have spent with some small business owner.
If you an your ilk just paid 5-7, heck 3 more percent in income taxes this wouldn’t have to be the case. But I guess you, and the banks, and the billion dollar corporations (higher earnings, all-time high stock market) don’t want to pay more in taxes that would really just appear as a rounding error on our spread sheet.
Fuck you Mitt!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: I’m well aware of this, my graduate degree is in Economics.
I’ve been lurking the past few days(working on a web page to control my lighting/locks/thermostat), I’m now back among the living.
BillinGlendaleCA
I’m pretty happy with the results
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: Oh I know you knew that. I just needed to get that off my chest.
Let me know how your project goes.
I didn’t get the kit you suggested (it was the WEMO from Belkin wasn’t it?), but I did order 3 ilumi LED Smartbulbs the other day. Stacksocial had them 18% off. Will test them out in my office, and if they work as advertised, I’d move to WEMO with some of their middle level starter kits, and then to a thermostat (but I think Nest).
Pretty sure my thermostat is the one that was put in my house when it was built in the mid-70. It is either hot or cold in my house during the winter. I set the darn thermostat to what should be 72-75 and it goes past 80. It is too the point that I just have a nice space heater (and I see WEMO has one for what seems a pretty fair price), with a thermostat, in my home office, which is where I spend 15+ hours a day either working, online reading, playing video games, or watching TV. I just wear layers in other rooms, like when I am cooking or cleaning :).
That needs to stop next winter (summer, the thermostat seems to work fine w/ the AC — don’t ask me why).
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: I’ve been using Wemo switches for about a year or so. I recently started with Wink. I got a hub and 2 GE bulbs for the price of the bulbs. The Wink platform is new and there’s lots of bugs getting ironed out. I’ve had pretty good luck so far, some have not. I can voice control my lighting/temperature/lock as well as automating them(when I leave home, the door locks, the light dims, and the temperature is reduced). I think one of the issues that many folk are having is that they are using Wink’s built-in tools. I use Tasker/AutoVoice/AutoLocation to create my rules and do voice control.
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: Cook. Wink bookmarked for future reference. Just taking a quick look at their site/products, the Wink Relay Touch Screen Controller looks, from a user interface point-of-view superior to what other companies I’ve looked at have. And at $300, which isn’t a small amount of money, it seems almost reasonable.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: Being that I’m an apartment dweller, the Relay isn’t all that useful. There’s been some discussion over at a comment thread about wink about using a cheap android tablet instead, it’d be much cheaper. The advantage with the Relay is that it does give some local control, the hub has to “phone home”(unless you root it).
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: Well I am back. Just took everything out of my pantry, which is just a pretty large cabinet bolted to a wall. I didn’t think I had much space left. I pulled out everything and put it on the counter. When put it back in, in well an organized manner. Funny thing, it went from looking overload to almost empty. I kept looking around thinking I must have forgotten to put back like half the stuff, but nope.
BTW: Well I am a home owner, which means I guess I might have some benefits or able to do some things you couldn’t as a renter. But I will say if I can’t control everything on my phone or tablet, then I don’t want that product.
BTW #2: What do you mean by “phone home?” You have to call the unit and not text or use an app to control it?
Off to fix some pad thai for a very, very, very late dinner or an early breakfast. Not sure which.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: “Phone Home” means that it won’t work without being connected to the internet. The hub has to talk to the Wink servers, Wemo and many of the others also require an internet connection(though you can purchase an app that will act as a local Wemo server). This is great when you are not connected to your WiFi network; but if you are connected locally it can cause lag(though that’s gotten better). Of course if your internet goes out, so does your automated lights/locks/etc…
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: OK, of course that makes sense. And wouldn’t be a problem for me. My WiFi connect is actually more stable than my power. It is never down.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: lol, if the power goes out, you really don’t have to worry much about the lighting.
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: Oh I hear that. I don’t know what it is, other then I live in a small rural town and we buy our power through a co-op of other small town and not Illinois Power, but at least once a month for a few minutes it goes off. Big storm or winds, and well it can be out for many hours. I’ve never lived anyplace where it is like this.
It really isn’t something to even complain about other then the fact I never realized how many clocks I had in the house until the power goes out for a minute or two and walking around the house later in the day, in every direction I look there is a blinking clock :).
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’ve been worried about how the sewer project is sitting with our neighbors. There is a young couple in a junky rental across the street who have been inconvenienced the most. They have no driveway and a set of steps up to their place and they have had to negotiate some awful conditions. She was out front with her pup and I stopped to tell her how good she has been about this. Incredibly she launched into praise about the communicativeness of the contractor and his crew, how hard they have worked to help them AND how they have been having terrible backup problems in their plumbing for several years! I was so glad to hear that this job is going to benefit them since they are getting a new waste line too!
Tommy
@raven: That is good to hear. Infrastructure improvement is GOOD! It is my life experience that the vast majority of the people in this country are pretty laid back, friendly, understanding, and nice if you treat them with just a little respect (like the contractor, you know taking the time to communicate with the couple). Alas those are not the people, like the small percentage of tri-corner hat wearing tea party people that seem to have the need to bitch and yell at the top of their lungs about anything and everything, even if what they are bitching about doesn’t even affect their lives.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: The landlord here is replacing the bathtub in my place(starting Sunday morning) and hopefully fixing the sewer problems that I’ve been having. Though the last time he snaked it, I haven’t had a problem.
raven
@Tommy: Yea, we’ve been a little standoffish in that we don’t really want for this project to be seen as “our” work. The city/county would not have know the sewer goes under houses if it hadn’t been for us hitting it when we were digging the footings for our addition and it is to the benefit of everyone that it’s moved. The contractor and his guys have really been cool. There is no way to avoid a mess when you dig 15-18 trenches but they have done there best. Even our firebrand-newly elected commissioner has written positive things on the neighborhood listserv and we were more worried about her than the teabaggers!
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’ve had to use a 150ft power snake on my rental every 6 months or so.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: The landlord here is replacing the bathtub in my place(starting Sunday morning) and hopefully fixing the sewer problems that I’ve been having. Though the last time he snaked it, I haven’t had a problem.
@Tommy: The other problem with stuff going out “the cloud” is that you get lag sending and receiving commands, though the lag has improved alot recently.
ThresherK
Enjoy! It’s on the other coast from me, but dang if I it doesn’t make me want to get to the next BJ meetup in the metro Boston area.
JPL
@srv: To be fair, Romney does think those that earn $200,000 live in poverty.
satby
@JPL: And his mini-wannabe-me in IL, newly elected Rauner (R-asshole) reversed several executive orders put in by the last governor, including the one raising the minimum wage. Because those minimum wage workers have it so good.
Baud
@satby:
I can’t believe elections have consequences.
JPL
@satby: If the takers had to pay more taxes, they’d have more skin in the game.
tybee
@raven:
i want to borrow the snake. i have a 75 foot run from the laundry room to the main outlet pipe and there’s a tree root or something (old socks?) that causes a slowdown about once a year. most plumbers don’t have a snake that long – or so it seems. last time we hired a plumber to drill it out, he had to go rent one as the standard plumber equipment seems to be about 50 feet long.
raven
@tybee: I rent mine. The power snake is the way to go for a long run. You put the cutting head on it and feed it into the line via a foot switch. When you need to bring it out you just hit reverse and hold the thing until it retracts. It’s messy and you need good leather gloves but it ain’t rocket science which is proven my the fact that I can do it.
The Raven on the Hill
There’s always Drinking Liberally over at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 8pm. It’s every Tuesday night, and you can meet some of the local liberal media.
ā¦are enemies and gadbirds allowed?
bago
So were any executive decisions made?
EthylEster
I’ve wanted to check this place out for a bit so I may wander over…..it’s close to my ‘hood.