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Do yourself a favor and read the writeup about the perfect home automation system by founder of Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io)

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/01/19/perfect-home-a...

An app per device class/vendor is beyond useless. A centralized, single controller that mostly has no interface at all is the solution.


If your Mitsubishi uses IR for it's remote, this probably would work: https://github.com/geoffdavis/esphome-mitsubishiheatpump

Or, you can use a Broadlink IR blaster to clone the remote.

If your heat pump talks to MEL cloud (Mitsubishi's cloud thingy) then this should work: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/melcloud/

I have yet to buy a "smart" device that I haven't been able to control through HA. The Broadlink RF/IR bridges even makes anything with a remote automatable.

Seriously, If it wasn't for Home Assistant, the "smartness" of smart devices would be next to useless.


And some of the lowest Per Capita gun deaths.

Stop using anecdotes as data.


2/3rds of gun deaths are suicides, and so any differential in the firearm suicide rate will tend to swamp differences in the firearm homicide rate.

[1] puts CA as 3.4 gun homicides per 100,000 people per year, and TX at 3.2. Top of the list is DC at 16.5 (and then LA at 7.7), bottom of the list is VT at 0.3.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_death_rates_in_the_Uni...


But is so with gun murders? According to this chart (2015 data) is it not one of the lowest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

however it did seemingly fall in rank if not numbers from 2010

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_death_rates_in_the_Uni...


SF and NYC have some of the lowest per capital gun violence rates in the country.


Let me post the whole second amendment for you:

`A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.`

Your interpretation above, of an individual right to bear arms, derives from DC vs Heller ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller) which is relatively new: 2008.

It also doesn't comport with the contemporary writings of the framers, nor the fact that the term "militia" in the constitution refers to the National Guard, which was at the time imagined as a body made up of all able bodied men between 18 and 45 years old. Additionally, at the time, only men were considered "the people".


Seems to not be supported by the evidence.

States that do not allow unlicensed carry of handguns have lower per capita gun death.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-deaths-...


All gun deaths, or just gun crimes?


Well, the gun control argument is that guns are inherently dangerous, far moreso than lawn darts or kinder eggs, which are currently banned for sale in the US.

A gun is far more likely to kill a member of your own family than it is to protect a member of your family in a violent altercation.

Furthermore, evidence from the lowest crime and gun death countries around the world seem to indicate the gun ownership is strongly negatively correlated with gun crimes and gun death, unsurprisingly.

It's strange that folks epistemic horizon ends at the border.


Looks like they need to Share the Safety:

https://theyesmen.org/share-the-safety


Virus particles do not travel naked in the air, instead they are colloidally suspended in liquid, both droplets and aerosols.

So, if your filter catches the droplets and aerosols, which are much larger in size than the actual virus, the filter works.


Realization that somebody's droplets are getting into your mouth and nose makes one want to wear mask even after pandemic is over :)


You may want to check how much of your body weight is bacterial and how easy it is to exchange samples with others. Just own the things that make us human.


You're of course free to do whatever you think makes sense, but please don't expect other people to follow. The world is full of risks, but everything is a tradeoff - it's really bad if we start thinking random people are a danger to us.

And for what it's worth, I'm not anti-mask in the context of the pandemic - I've been wearing masks indoors since the whole thing started and I'll continue to do this until most people around me are vaccinated, for their sake.


assuming: 1) 100% capture of air flow 2) no fatigue (ie capture is same at t=0, and t=later)

anyone with glasses will tell you 1 isn't a very good assumption. As masks saturate in moisture, back pressure causes (1) to be more false.


Except that field data shows they don’t because they are not used precisely as required - which means the filter doesn’t work effectively if at all and then it becomes infectious waste that isn’t treated and disposed of correctly.

Human system effects dominate - as the field data shows. It’s like HCQ - works in a lab, not in the real world.

Might be useful in tightly controlled medical settings with adequate filtered ventilation. But there’s no hard evidence beyond that at this stage.

Feynman’s rule still applies.


Not that this will settle anything.

Anecdotally, I've not gotten even a slight cold while being socially distanced while consistently masked.


It's not just an anecdote, it's measurable on a global scale [0]

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03519-3


Well, that may be due to other people social distancing enough to keep the level of colds down. It might have nothing to do with masks.


My 2yo would like to sneeze on you and flip that anecdote on its head.


Years ago my entire family got sick and I was determined not to contract it through distancing and frequent hand washing and sanitizing. It worked until I bent down to tie my toddler’s shoes only to look up and mid-sentence have him cough directly into my open mouth. All it takes is one mistake. Needless to say I got sick shortly after.


A few years ago I went on vacation for a week with a half-dozen friends in an Airbnb and spent the entire time miserably sick with some kind of respiratory illness. I was similarly determined not to get anyone else sick (and I was sick from the start, so avoided any asymptomatic period). I was fastidious about distancing and sanitizing, and any time I needed to cough I'd step outside of the house. Nobody else got sick. Is the sample size here large enough to determine anything? No idea, but I like the anecdote.


I wonder what the result would have been if you immediately gargled with vodka.

I've used that successfully in the past to chase colds out of the throat before they get into my nose and lungs.


I’ll try that next time!


Parent of a 1.5 year old here. Can confirm - several colds.

To the parent comment's point though, I haven’t had any colds in the last year where my daughter wasn’t sick first


They seem to have perpetual runny noses when they’re really young.


I'm not sure which explanation you are seeking to flip, but a sneeze can be cause by an adenovirus, which were apparently not suppressed this year as the influenza viruses and other four endemic coronaviruses were.


Objectively, it doesn’t seem to matter if an area is masked or not. The virus won’t be stopped. Just compare Florida to California or Georgia to Washington state.

I know what the models say. But my eyes deceive me.


>got a cold

That's because the cold virus is spread by surfaces, and you likely touched something with it, then scratched your eyes. You can be 80 miles from someone, but if you touch something he touched, you're potentially getting his cold.


> That's because the cold virus is spread by surfaces

Stop. There is no one virus called "the cold virus", and several of the viruses that do cause colds (including, for example, the other four endemic coronaviruses) are not known to spread by fomites.


You stop. Looks like we're both wrong: https://www.cdc.gov/features/rhinoviruses/index.html

It's either surface contact or ghosts coughing in the poster's face.


I didn't say that there aren't other viruses that cause colds that can be spread by fomites. I said that:

1) There isn't a single virus called "the cold virus"

2) In addition to SARS-CoV-2, there are other viruses that cause cold-like symptoms that are not spread by fomites.

Your comment gave the impression that there's a single "cold virus" for which fomite transmission is the primary vector. That's not so. There are a bunch of viruses (in fact a bunch of families of viruses) bunch that cause cold symptoms, and only a few of them are commonly spread by fomites. None of the five endemic coronaviruses are known to be among these, nor is influenza.

Also, even though the CDC appears to be correct to my eyes in this case, I urge that, after the disastrous departure from anything resembling science in the past year and a half, we stop regarding it as a credible source.


Stop again. Then read the link I posted.


I have read the link you posted many times. I am familiar (albeit at an arm's length, as an amateur) with rhinovirus, adenoviruses, coronaviruses, RSV, etc.

At the end of the day, you made a misrepresentation that, taken at face value, gives a false impression that might lead to bad conclusion with respect to control of these viruses.

There are dozens (some scientists believe hundreds) of viruses that cause cold symptoms. Fomite transmission has been reported in a few, though there is scant evidence at this point. In the vast majority, it has not. In some, like the endemic coronaviruses, it has been examined extensively and not found.

It's certainly worth further study!

But your assertion that suppression of fomite transmission - rather than viral interference - is the explainer of splitrocket not having contracted a cold is not well-founded, but might lead to them (or others) believe that this is a positive side effect of surface sanitization.

Now, has norovirus perhaps been suppressed by all the surface sanitization? Maybe. But not colds. The cold viruses appear to have been suppressed by viral interference (with the curious exception of the adenoviruses).

Attempts to suppress fomite transmission come at a significant cost, namely, increased antimicrobial resistance. It's important not to use this method of suppression in places where it will have no effect, such as attempts at population-level control of viruses that cause cold symptoms.


It has been a pleasant year in that regard. We finally went on a domestic trip to Atlanta a couple weeks ago, after having been fully vaccinated in the middle of April. Guess what we came back with? A cold. Dammit!


Anecdotally, I spent an entire week, unmasked, in an apartment with someone sick with symptomatic Covid, and never caught it.

Anecdotes are not data.


It's more plausible, at least in my view, that this is the result of suppression of several endemic respiratory pathogens by viral interference (something that has been observed in previous pandemics).

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-unexpected-case-...


anecdotally, I have very little social contact normally anyway, I've worked from home since before winter, and always wear masks in closed public spaces - have had 3-4 colds in that time.

I do have kids though.


Anecdotally, since taking vitamin D3 supplements I haven't been getting colds. Added daily nutritional zinc supplements in 2020 as soon as they were available after I heard the anecdotal evidence D & zinc are effective in Covid prevention. Throughout winter and early spring last year you couldn't get zinc supplements for love or money.

A lot of anecdotes there :).

The American medical establishment has a long history of not getting behind nutritional disease prevention. Some of it is for good reason, but I think there is also a systemic bias.


My frequency of colds has increased 10x since I've gotten married and had kids.


Anecdotally I haven't had a cold in years. I work out 4 days a week and while I wouldn't call it a strict diet I have an upper limit calorie "budget" that I never exceed. While it's certainly possible that masks helped some people avoid all airborne transmissions last year, lots of people were also able to exercise more and make better food choices without the rush of breakfast and lunch commutes.


I made absolutely no changes 1 year, but because my workspace at work was in an alcove next to an air conditioning vent that pulled air from the outside, I completely dodged the office cold because I basically had my own positive pressure environment.

It's more likely your lifestyle is simply keeping you away from people and places that experience high levels of foot traffic.


I also wonder if some people just don't have as strong as immune response and so they get barely a sniffle from a typical cold virus.


Get kids. They are plague carriers.


My dad used to refer to day care as "your friendly local disease exchange," because he and my mom would get sick whenever they visited grandchildren.

And a former colleague, then childless, called them "petrie dishes."


If your identity was used without your consent, I wonder if you could sue?


You can't. Did you lose anything? Did one spoofed message have any bearing on the result? Maybe if people came together it would be different, but whoever made the decision could say that they knew these messages were off and had no effect on the result.


Who would you sue?


I am not a lawyer, but I thought in cases like this you can sue a “John Doe” and then ask the court to compel logs and data from an entity (in this case, the FCC, to then identify the defendant.


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