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Comment Re:Not even three years (Score 1) 57

Not sure about these particular devices, but in general devices will still be fine. You add via a QR code, HomeKit stuff is local only. But even with this - it's Matter/Thread that's the current hotness, not HomeKit/Google/Alexa-specific. If a thing supports Matter and Thread, *properly* (i.e. hubless), then you're fine. If it doesn't, or it does but needs a hub in the middle before it spits out Matter out of the other side...be wary.

Comment Re:Not even three years (Score 1) 57

This is a good example of why you pick things that work natively with what you want. In this case, if you've connected them via HomeKit then they'll carry on working without issue. In future cases - buy the standards, look for Matter (and preferably Threads) integration to make sure you don't need this kind of reaching out to servers.

Comment Re:Now watch the ideological capture of /. (Score 1) 41

1000% agree. I don't know if you expected I'd disagree, but absolutely: the idea of a $100 million plane (and what they don't tell you is that the quote to allies is +$400 million in life costs for the plane's operational span - this is a $half BILLION plane).

You could FILL THE SKY with crazy awesome drones and deploy a "can't miss" directed-energy weapon AA defense system for the cost of 1 stupid F35.

DoD exactly like NASA: the government needs to aggressively prune these programs.
We are $37 BILLION in debt.

Comment Now watch the ideological capture of /. (Score 1, Interesting) 41

There will be a wave of posts about how these Brave Senators are fighting the Nasty Orange Fascist Tyrant and his anti-Science agenda(tm).

When in fact, let's be clear:
- SLS is an hilariously borderline disaster. Behind by years, $billions beyond budget, tests constantly fail. And it basically doesn't work.
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress...
- Should we talk about how their original mandate was more or less just to REbuild the Saturn V/Apollo a little bigger with modern materials? You know, that system that had 17 launches with only one launch system (sort of) failure (Apollo 13) MORE THAN 50 years ago? The system that was largely designed by engineers, whose "computers" were 6-7 orders of magnitude less capable than the smartphone in your pocket? Does it help the argument to point out that NASA is basically trying to rebuild something their fathers built, this time with astonishing developments in CAD/CAM, design, and almost-magical accomplishments in material science...and we still haven't even gotten a working fucking SPACESUIT yet?
- Destin @ SmarterEveryDay is about as proNASA as they can be, it's in his blood, and he *tried* in the most polite way possible to tell them "look, we all know this is a mess, nobody's even done the basic math on some CRITICAL program items for Artemis and...nobody's talking about it" It's a good video, and a good talk from someone who is genuinely sympathetic to the engineers in that room.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ...(crickets)
- Yes, some of these senators (mostly the Democrats, but there are neverTrumper GOPs that will pretend righteousness) will themselves claim this as a Pro Science Crusade. Maybe it is, sure, whatever. But what these senators are MOSTLY fighting for is their piece of the $50 BILLION spent in their states that's been spent so far with no real sign of completion. That's serious gravy-train money even in Senatorial scales.

NASA (& JPL) is an amazing organization. It really IS rocket science. They have made some astonishing accomplishments, even in recent years, such as JWST and Martian probes that run nearly forever. They are, bar none, the pre-eminent space exploration organization on earth.
To be clear, I'm not peddling an alternative - there is no easy answer now.
I'm fine with Musk constantly blowing up spaceships, it's his $, but NASA is supposed to be good at this. Frankly, I'd rather we have a government space program *AND* private-industry space programs, both!

Nevertheless, at some point *someone* in charge has to have the nuts to confront NASA when a program is a mess and DEMAND they either fix it or kill it. It can't just go on hemorrhaging money for nothing in return.

Comment Re:Do not do it (Score 1) 44

Although the literal answer to that is "yes" since people have definitely rewired houses before, the more relevant one is - this isn't a completely different system. Your light bulb remains a light bulb. It screws into the same sockets as the last ones did, and is operated by the same switches.

In terms of protocols, I've already got several protocols running in my house and they mix and match without issue. Gradually switching over to emphasises one of them (Matter/Thread) more than the others won't affect the overall setup at all.

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