US street signs are standardized so you can see at a glance without reading. I understand the EU does similar but with a different standard.

But street signs are not the only signs. There are place names and ads and directions and telling you where to line up for what and how much the subway costs and how to get from one part of Paris to another and directions for the theater, etc, and most of those are localized

How about gps directions to navigate an unfamiliar location?

Or for travelling: there already is a phone app to translate signs but it would be so much more to have that live

Yes, I swear that’s the biggest benefit of the Apple Watch. For the things it does, it’s so much more convenient than dragging a big old phone out of your pocket. From reading texts and notifications, to payments, to exercise and health data, to 2fa,to using a voice assistant, even checking time and weather.

Then again that’s a high bar of convenience for ever lower marginal improvements for the goggles to try to build

AR goggles and AI: two hot technologies that go great together. They need each other

Arguably just gps instructions and step tracking superimposed on reality would be a great use of AR

This could also be the breakout app for AI. While AR glasses obviously need shape recognition and manipulation, the real world has many many more things than likely to be codified. How do you deal with that? AI. How do you do arbitrary summaries of whatever you’re looking at? AI. How do you interact with the glasses and the real world? Speech recognition and AI.

You heard it here first, folks. Two hot new technologies with no real use yet will find each other and turn into something useful

Maybe it’s as simple as the next big product. When smartphones were new, nobody foresaw just how huge they’d become. Nobody could have foreseen what a force they’d turn Apple into. But now improvements are simply iterative, the market is nearing saturation, there’s not much room left to expand what’s next?

Maybe AR. It’s a really cool technology just now becoming practical to implement. Think of them as where smartphones were 15 years ago. Maybe they won’t go anywhere but imagine if they did! Imagine being the company most associated with the next hit tech product!

Apple risks stagnating if they don’t find a next hit product

My cube neighbor did that at work today: she thought her tea was overwhelmingly coffee, but I thought her coffee was completely ruined

It doesn’t even have to be a derailed boom, but simply

• a maturity transition where the dilettantes fall out, concentrating on the biggest players
• more efficiency. There’s been a ton of research on efficiency and that’s a great profit multiplier so will be rapidly taken up

Aside from the obvious questions everyone else is posting …. How is this even relevant? Saudi Arabia mainly exports oil, but US uses almost no oil products for generating electricity. Unless data centers start installing their own generators (please no) for full time power, it’s a non-starter. What electrical utility does s going to build an oil burning generator plant?

History we’ve used a lot of coal and natural gas, so that’s the most likely fossil fuels to increase. And those are fuels the US has tons of

Same here. Never any noticeable performance issues. I’m happy with this choice, given low cost, energy efficiency, stability. I also like that I can dedicate the hardware to HA, whereas I’d be tempted to share if I had a more capable box

However I only have a couple dozen devices and don’t attempt to run anything intensive like voice processing, image recognition, or any sort of media streaming.

Seriously. I replaced my wireless with a mesh during COVID. I spent way too much to get WiFi6 when it was new, now 5 years later …

Wifi7 is available, it is only gigabit Ethernet, and most importantly some promised features were never delivered and it never really got stable. I’m ready to replace it

I may update Ethernet to 2.5g first

A lot of choices don’t seem to be available in the US - Hyundai/kia seems best of what else is available in a lot of ways. I originally hoped the legacy American manufacturers were getting their shit together but it looks like they’re crawling back under their rocks.

I guess my biggest hope is that Lucid or Rivian are able to break out into mass production of their next generation

Yeah, it’s unfortunate. I bought mine when we could still ignore the red flags and it’s still my favorite car feature wise, there are still so many things it does better than any car, still so many features not available on other vehicles for any price. The comparisons with Apple are apt - I could have been a lifelong customer. But wtf mental illness happened here? For the first time ever I’m embarrassed by what I drive. I don’t know what I’ll do next time I need a car, but it won’t be a Tesla without radical changes in leadership - and that Nazi is only the start. Every board member and executive who thinks that’s ok has to go

I would so do that if I could.

There’s a longer story but: I finished converting to LED years ago, except for this room. The lights are …. different …. And I just haven’t found anything comparable even today

Not dimmable unfortunately, and changing that would be far more complicated and expensive than you’d believe

I actually do the slow dim in a different room- that’s an automation I’m more proud of, although most of the credit goes to Inovelli! I have the dimming rates set differently for manual dimming, automated dimming, and good night dimming

If only people saying that were aware of their logic flaw of also cutting funding to fusion research

It’s probably as simple as we already have something successful. Why spend time and effort overcoming the challenges to create new reactor technology with many of the same benefits and shortcomings as we already have?

I know the arguments for thorium and can see that being a huge benefit to places without a mature nuclear industry and without developed fuel sources.

Sure it would be somewhat better for us as well, but the biggest limitations will be the same. You’re still impeded by fears of radioactivity even if it is less. You still have radioactive waste to handle even if it’s less and less long lasting. You still have legal and regulatory challenges driving costs and timelines through the roof. Thorium hasn’t won the war of public perception, so is no better in the things that actually impede its use

Yes, but unfortunately that makes it even dumber - anyone up at that time likely has headphones on to game or listen to music without disturbing anyone trying to sleep

Congrats on your first automation!

One of my first ones was even dumber:

• at midnight
  • in the family room
    1. Announce over Alexa that it is getting late and you should goto bed
    2. Turn off the light.

I at least need to only trigger if the light is on, but also try only when someone is in the room