I'd like to see a database of municipalities that have passed an ordinance banning these systems (including 12 hour drone flyovers like they've been doing in Camden, NJ; drones are fine for specific or exigent circumstances, but flying them systematically is concerning!).
In fact, if anyone knows of municipalities that have done so let me know. I'd like to spend tourist money in those places that I haven't been able to spend in authoritarian-leaning locales as a reward for valuing freedom over suffocation of the constitution for little to no benefit.
> A statement provided by a Flock Safety spokesperson said, “Flock helps law enforcement, including hundreds of agencies around Illinois, solve crimes and make communities safer, and we are proud of the results we have achieved in partnership with the Evanston PD. We continue to be optimistic that we will have the opportunity to have a constructive dialogue to address the City’s concerns, and resume our successful partnership making Evanston safer.” [0]
Hows that for taking no as an answer? My god, we are in big trouble if this is going to be a regular thing. IMHO we need to shut this country down.
This is interesting. If Optimus hardware is supposed to be $15k, and Indian workers remotely operate it, there must be jobs in the US and elsewhere that it can handle. Median Indian salary is $4000 a year. No US minimum wage, no overly expensive health care, no Union fees, no workers comp, no visa. 86% savings over a US worker at $15 an hour. Plus, if they are a maid, there's a chance they'll get a free peek.
Around Seattle, modern houses are square boxes with a flat roof, and zero eaves. I watch these homes get built all the time. A few years later, I see all the water damage to the siding.
You're right about ridge vents, they behave much like a cupola, but the holes in them are too small for much airflow, and are easily blocked by debris, insects and moss.
That's a concern. It may be a good idea to put a connected thermometer and hygrometer in the attic. If it is ventilating properly, the temperature and humidity should be close to outdoor values.
> "We trust our customers and do not conduct surveillance on them. When necessary, we take appropriate action, including having security cameras and security guards in our stores, to help ensure the safety of our customers and Crew Members," the company said.
That was in 2018 and it seems in 2024 they still do not have cameras. New locations I've seen do not either. I wouldn't be surprised if they weighed the cost of installing and maintaining cameras and the cost of "a string of robberies" and determined cameras were more expensive.
In the pandemic I bought the cheapest one, and it worked very well. It had a handle so I could pick it up, responsive buttons, and intuitive tones.
A few years later I bought one that automatically suctioned debris into a home base. That one had no handle, required reset frequently, and had tones that made you guess which Japanese train station it just arrived at.
Something went wrong at that company, and I don't think competition is an excuse.
When Roomba thought it was about to be acquired by Amazon, it did lay off 10% of its staff - https://www.therobotreport.com/irobot-laying-off-10-of-staff.... and after the deal was canceled, it was disclosed that they had reduced R&D and focused on margin improvements, and there was some brain drain as people left Roomba as it was in a 18 month limbo - https://www.verdict.co.uk/irobot-to-cut-over-a-third-of-its-.... And of course all this self inflicted pain only hurt them doubly as the Amazon deal fell through. If they had acted as if they weren't going to be acquired they might be fine, but they tried to maximize the shareholder revenue.
Back in the day (about 2002) I was working at an education software company which was trying to get itself acquired by Microsoft. MSFT came in and told us our software didn't conform to all these "standards" in the educational software space. Standards which, coincidentally, Microsoft themselves had written. These pseudo-standards did absolutely nothing to help our customers, and were pure bureaucracy and very very complicated to implement.
I'd recently read Charles Ferguson's book about how his company was acquired by MSFT, and recognized this part of their standard operating procedure, along with extreme and invasive due diligence where they spend a lot of time working out if you're stupid/pliable enough to jump through these hoops while buying themselves time to work out if they can clone your product. I tried to warn management (yes, really - even bought them copies of the book) but naturally no one would listen, and reading a book was too much like hard work. At some point MSFT simply ceased returning management's calls, and rolled out a similar product a while later.
The company imploded not long after, not for this reason in particular, but it was part of a general pattern of incompetence and mismanagement.
Friend of mine was in a company that was going to be acquired by $bigcompany. They strung them along and strung the along until their VC funding was exhausted, then picked up the remains for a song. Much cheaper than actually buying them up.
Agreed, putting aside the low cost competition, failed Amazon acquisition, etc.. the core product just literally got worse.
I had over a ~10 year period purchased 3 roombas. Generally I purchased in the upper half of current product range at each purchase time.
The most reliable, problem-free, longest lasting Roomba was the first initially purchased one. Every new one with more sensors/cameras/features worked worse. Cleaned worse, got stuck more often, was less easily fixed when in a bad state, etc. They got so bad I just stopped using them all together about a year ago.
Every time I purchased a newer Dyson cordless by comparison, the product seemed better than the last generation.
I have to believe that cordless broom vacs have put a dent in robovacs generally as well. When I looked at robovacs last, I came to the conclusion that my house wasn't great for them and that a broom vac I could just pull off the wall and run in a couple heavily trafficked locations for a few minutes was really just fine. The issue previously was that it was sort of a pain to pull out my plug in canister vac--so I mostly didn't. (I have a housekeeper every 3 to 4 weeks.)
I think also if you wfh then listening to the roomba go in circles for two hours versus just quickly vacuuming with a stick vacuum in fifteen minutes is a different equation.
The newer models are much more quiet compared to the older ones. In my case, the 980 vs 705 vac; the 980 can at times sound like a jet plane taking off. :)
I wrote to hn@ and asked for this as a feature request:
"1. Delayed Karma Display. I understand why comment karma was hidden. I don't see the harm in un-hiding karma after some time. If not 24 hours, then 72-168 hours. This would help me read through threads with 1300 comments."
This was last January. While I asked for a few more features, it is the only one that seems essential as HN grows with massive threads.
I think this targets an extremely esoteric group. (Sort of like an article titled "How to Invest Your $1 Billion.") But it is a cool idea.
Since Esmeralda was mentioned: I hadn't heard of it and am glad to see the emergence of cities/neighborhoods starting from scratch. We need more experiments to jump start strong culture as existing cities and towns decay. Hopefully these places offer a very human experience.
I think there’s a decent number of remote-working, highly social people with substantial disposable income, who have friends living elsewhere that they’d like to spend quality time with. Especially in the tech crowd. This would appeal to a lot of people I know.
I think as people start to have kids it would be less appealing, but people seem to be doing that later these days (or not at all).
No doubt 25-35 y.o. or so could pull it off. Probably don't even have to be fully remote, just tell your laid back boss you want to work remotely for a couple weeks.
According to the article the quality of the pool matters. If you want a neighborhood feel, the challenge is to come up with 8-40 people who are going to jive. Devon noted that (at least one) FoaF experience didn't work out. I think it is great if you have the social sense to select such a chill group but I'd be surprised if many people could accomplish organizing a successful large group.
In fact, if anyone knows of municipalities that have done so let me know. I'd like to spend tourist money in those places that I haven't been able to spend in authoritarian-leaning locales as a reward for valuing freedom over suffocation of the constitution for little to no benefit.
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