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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Yeah, I got some z wave thermostats for home.

    I got an Emersonl “homekit” thermostat for my in-law and managed to get it on wifi without “cloud”. Unfortunately you have to be careful because the follow on model requires their cloud service for online control.

    It’s a real shame that most every house is well equipped to do standalone hosting for remote access, but most of the investment has gone toward cloud connected to force the recurring revenue opportunity.











  • Tesla as a company is in a damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

    When you look at the business fundamentals versus the stock valuation, it’s clear something doesn’t add up, and at least formerly elons image was a big part of it.

    Then he went full mask off and tanked his image.

    So without the musk cult, is there enough to support their over inflated valuation? What does a post cult Tesla look like, when other companies have proven they can catch up or pass Tesla on various fronts people thought Tesla might be unassailably ahead. The various potential horizontal growth opportunities like solar and home batteries have fallen flat, their robot demonstration was significantly faked, and they are late to the self driving cab game, at best. A solid company, but not worth more than all their competition combined as their current valuation suggests.

    So I think the hope is that he gets preoccupied with “making Tesla great again” and away from screwing with government. Then hope that people kind of forget about his political machinations and things sort of go back to the way they were for the hopefully forgetful public.


  • Actually, I’d wager it isn’t even about the money. Ffor his reality it’s a vague abstract number. He never really has to worry about running out and can live as extravagant of a lifestyle he wants. To the extent the details matter, it’s more of a ‘high score’ than anything that actually materially impacts his life.

    The real punch in the gut is that he has gone his entire life with the masses either kissing his ass and worshipping him as the greatest tech guy ever, or people who just don’t care about him either way. He of course earned some personal vitriol from people who knew him personally, maybe more than the average but he always felt vindicated by his adoring masses.

    Since every random person that he actually ever heard express any opinion put him on the highest of pedastals, then surely every one will be relieved if he forced himself and his ideas over their lives? Suddenly he has to face the judgement of so many mililon people that were previously content to largely ignore the hell out of him. This is probably really hard to cope with after 50 years of unrelenting ass-kissing.


  • Agriculture probably hurts a little. China could not care less about American digital services ( they largely banned them anyway) and if it comes down to it, they can totally ignore patent protection. They do have some issues with actual chip design and manufacturing, though that will likely see them improve if they have to.

    Don’t know that China is a better place to be for the citizenry or anything, but the government and business leaders are in a better supported position than American counterparts in an economic split.

    It might have been one thing if the US had continued to fixate on China and maybe isolate China, but he is simultaneously screwing with everyone in the world and tarnishing our image as comparatively “good guys” on human rights undermines our position. China may still be viewed as a bad actor, but our bad behavior might make them the lesser of the few evils.


  • I’m not sure.

    We are here mainly because the business leaders sold out the core of our economy to enrich themselves thanks to cheap labor of an at the time backwards China. They had the hubris to think the workers replaceable but the leadership somehow magic.

    Now they increasingly see China business leadership clearly emerging as an independent force that puts pressure on them.

    They spent decades helping China gain independent capabilities and it’s too late to claw that back

    About the only thing they are really hurt by are the export controls on chips and chip manufacturing technology, but they are getting there. Yes there’s a crunch in their export business that will hurt, but it’s easier to cope with that than just not having the facilities to build the stuff you want or the expansive labor force.