In This Episode: Smart homes, Blocking Utah, AirTags, Anniversary and picking locks.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 55:12 — 35.9MB)
This week the TEH Podcast is hosted by Leo Notenboom, the “Chief Question Answerer” at Ask Leo!, and Gary Rosenzweig, the host and producer of MacMost, and mobile game developer at Clever Media.
(You’ll find longer Bios on the Hosts page.)
Top Stories
- 1:00 GR: Been expanding my Smart Home tech. Some good, some bad.
- Smart Google stuff.
- 5:30 Giving it a time to turn off.
- Won’t dim over time. Might be coming.
- Too many apps… one for each lightbulb.
- Tried Geeni, gave me just one app.
- Had one bulb break after a week.
- Figuring out switches.
- 14:00 Smart isn’t always smart enough.
- Tuya … reducing number of apps.
- 18:25 LN: Utah legislation wants to perform age verification. Turns out it’s easier to block a state than it is to have reliable age verification, so sites are cutting off Utah.
- https://www.vice.com/en/article/93kbkv/pornhub-blocks-utah-age-verification
- Often IP verification is inaccurate. VPNs can be from anywhere.
- 24:00 Montana ban of TikTok.
- 29:30 GR: AirTags… what they can and can’t do.
- 34:00 Police departments now actively suggesting to use AirTags to track stolen cars.
- https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/watch-mayor-adams-makes-public-safety-announcement-in-the-bronx/
- 43:00 LN: 40 years ago today(!)
- May 2, 1983 A young Leo Notenboom walked up the steps of a small company called Microsoft.
- GR: Starting high school…
Ain’t it Cool
- 45:00 LN: Irony in the bobiverse.
- 46:00 Murderbot series.
- 47:00 LN: Lock Picking Lawyer
- 49:00 GR: Clyfford Still Museum
Even houses built in the 70s should have wiring with neutrals.
However, if it is an older house that had switches and lights replaced, the wiring would not have been done unless there was serious rearranging of it. Just too difficult to pull new wire through “old work”.
Even with newer homes, light switches are commonly on “switch loops”. The power (with neutral and safety ground) source is in the lamp box with only the hot wire and a return wire wired to the switch. Since 2 conductor NM (plastic coated) cable has a black and a white, the white is supposed to be marked with a color to indicate that it is not a neutral.