Just never, ever connect the TV to the internet. Connect up an Nvidia shield, or a mini-PC/raspberry pi configured with whatever apps you desire, hidden behind a pi-hole. Connect a steam deck if gaming/linux desktop usage is your thing. I only touch the TV remote to switch on the TV, and even that could be automatable with home assistant+CEC if that's of interest.
I had a TV once, can't remember the brand, that refused to stream from my dlna server unless it could contact its own corporate servers over the internet first.
In theory, this seems great, but you won't be able to use the majority of streaming applications nor get the same quality out of those applications. Like Netflix, they purposely downgrade the streaming quality on desktop.
The NVIDIA shield doesn’t suffer from those issues in my experience. It’s far superior when browsing menus for example versus on a smart tv as the hardware is still decent even for a relatively old product. I just hope NVIDIA continues to support it for a while more.
There are some great 3D printing services out there for those who don’t have access to a 3D printer locally. You can upload the CAD file and get an instant quote.
The fact that so many people from all over the world are drawn to older architecture with "tons of unnecessary ornamentation" makes you think where we went wrong in recent decades.
I guess I may have phrased that slightly incorrectly. The ornamentation is unnecessary from a functional viewpoint, but that isn't a bad thing. It is one of the reasons those buildings are so good looking, and that is not a bad thing. All the ornamentation is one of the reasons both of those buildings are still tourist attractions and draw thousands of visitors a year. I just meant that the ornamentation is unnecessary from a functional viewpoint, they just did all that stonework to make them look nice. Which is an architectural trend I wish would catch on again.
I think the "form over function" dogma has taken over to such an extent that it's creating miserable, concrete and glass hellscapes that are foisted upon the public by detatched "starchitects". A great point that was mentioned somewhere (maybe in that artlicle I linked) is that unlike other forms of art, architecture is forced into your view, whether you like it or not. If you hate modern art, you can simply avoid that msueum.
With newer stone CNC machines now advancing, hopefully we can recreate the beautiful, intricate craftsmanship of the past, and indeed even develop wacky, creative new forms too and move away from these horrible, bland designs that have taken over everywhere, and made every cityscape look generic and indistinct.
> A secret report by Germany’s Federal Audit Office leaked to the public last week states that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York refuses to allow Bundebank staff to even view the gold, triggering suspicions that the vaults are empty as well as calls for the gold to be shipped back to Berlin.
> The Fed implements stringent security controls, and refuses even Bundesbank staff full access to the German gold hoard. A team of personnel demanding access in 2007 were only allowed to visit the anteroom of the reserves, and when Bundebank auditors visited in May 2011 only one of nine compartments was opened for direct handling.
> The Federal Reserve’s fervent secrecy has engendered suspicion and concern, with some claiming that Germany’s gold has long ago disappeared or been lent out, and that only promissory notes of nominal value are sitting in the vault.
Note that Germany already finished bringing back 300 tons of gold from NYC and about the same amount from Paris in 2016, so this is a bit out of date (that whole transfer was completed ahead of schedule, which indicates, in hindsight, that probably not all the German gold in NYC was missing completely in 2011 :P).
Yes indeed, this article is outdated. But I posted it to counter the other comments here which are trying to draw links to Trump bring the reason that the Bundesbank don’t believe the US Fed. In fact, some in Germany have long mistrusted the Fed’s word on how much German gold is still actually in the vaults.
Here is a very fun, deeply speculative article from Zerohedge on this topic, from 2013:
> That's right, ladies and gentlemen, as a result of our cursory examination, we have learned that the world's largest private, and commercial, gold vault, that belonging once upon a time to Chase Manhattan, and now to JPMorgan Chase, is located, right across the street, and at the same level underground, resting just on top of the Manhattan bedrock, as the vault belonging to the New York Federal Reserve, which according to folklore is the official location of the biggest collection of sovereign, public gold in the world.
> At this point we would hate to be self-referential, and point out what one of our own commentators noted on the topic of the Fed's vault a year ago, namely that:
> Chase Plaza (now the Property of JPM) is linked to the facility via tunnel... I have seen it. The elevators on the Chase side are incredible. They could lift a tank.
> ... but we won't, and instead we will let readers make up their own mind why the the thousands of tons of sovereign gold in the possession of the New York Fed, have to be literally inches across, if not directly connected, to the largest private gold vault in the world.
LLMs (I use ChatGPT) can take a generic process description, spit out the result in mermaid, which can then be imported and refined in something like draw.io. Yes, you’ll have to correct a few things by hand, but it drastically speeds things up. Last time I check draw.io is supported in obsidian.
I recently tried this, but the import to draw.io did not go well. It imported as a single static image rather an editable diagram. Maybe I did something wrong?
Usually in such cases either copy and paste the error message from draw.io, or screenshot it and upload to chatGPT. It will debug it for you.
There’s also a specific sequence of steps to import mermaid scripts, I don’t remember the menu location by heart, ChatGPT can also give you the steps needed to do this.
They also have them in Germany. I used to have the manual "flat roll of fabric" in the past, and upgraded the entire rollers in the house to electric ones (I don't know if it's possible to only upgrade the fabric roll -> electric switch without upgrading the entire shutter).
After you have electric-controlled rollers, you can control them via any automation you want by installing a "Shelly Plus 2PM" device behind each switch.
I connect the Shellys to home assistant, and from there, trigger all the rollers to go down a certain number of minutes after sunset. They all rise at a certain time in the morning. You can always trigger them manually too, of course. ChatGPT can spit out very complex YAML for HA if you want to make life easier, your only limit is your imagination.
Just never, ever connect the TV to the internet. Connect up an Nvidia shield, or a mini-PC/raspberry pi configured with whatever apps you desire, hidden behind a pi-hole. Connect a steam deck if gaming/linux desktop usage is your thing. I only touch the TV remote to switch on the TV, and even that could be automatable with home assistant+CEC if that's of interest.