!lemmysilver

Yep. One of Cave’s recordings to the “astronauts, Olympians, and/or war heroes” in the old test tracks.

That’s the saddest, most pathetic idea I’ve ever heard.

“Just a heads up: that coffee we gave you earlier had fluorescent calcium in it so we can track the neuronic activity in your brain. There’s a slight chance the calcium could harden and vitrify your frontal lobe. Anyway, don’t stress yourself thinking about it. I’m serious; visualizing the scenario while under stress actually triggers the reaction.”

Good to know. I just went with the Tasmota ones because I’m familiar with the firmware and can upgrade it independently from the manufacturer. Plus, it takes a month to get a shipment from Ali, so I didn’t want to play any guessing games; I knew Tasmota worked.

I don’t have the audiobooks, but I do have the e-books of the whole series. I read the first two and then half of the third book before I started watching the TV adaptation. Going to probably have to start over at the first book so I don’t get confused.

That’s cool it was easy-peasy, but would also have been a prime opportunity to dissolve the HOA (which, I believe, the HOA can do itself).

Good luck. I’ve had issues finding non-cloud smart bulbs/plugs. These came from Ali with Tasmota pre-installed. Haven’t looked for a couple of years, so hopefully the non-cloud options are easier to source these days.

I think Hue or ones that use Zigbee are viable. !homeassistant@lemmy.world may be able to offer some suggestions.

Four lamps in different parts of the room, all with smart bulbs.

They’re tied together into a single dimmer/color/temp selector in HomeAssistant.

For ambiance, they’re usually running at like 35-40%.

I like a lot of Disturbed’s catalog, but one thing they do very, very well is covers.

Land of Confusion is another cover of theirs that I like way more than the original.

Evolution is just future-proofing Australian animals.

I kind of thought that about Would I Lie to You? but it turned out great.

(Alien life realizes humans have detected them)

Quick, turn off the lights! Maybe they’ll think we’re not home.

On the last season of The Expanse right now.

Finally: He asking the same question as the rest of the world.

if the dues they collected were used to fund things like maintenance and upkeep

That was basically their original intention until they got perverted to only care about protecting their property values like you said. There are still some “good” HOAs that are basically just that, but you don’t hear much about them. Still, any good HOA can become a bad one at any time, so I just avoid them like the plague.

I was thinking like gated community type areas which are treated more like private property. And in that example, I meant more like if one house opted out of the HOA, but the HOA was still there, then they’d be using the roads without contributing to maintenance.

But yeah, assuming the HOA dissolved, I would imagine the city or county would take over.

Disclaimer: I’m very anti-HOA. But I do think the case could be made for them in high-density housing like apartment buildings and condos.

Single family homes, though, no. When I was house shopping, I removed any that were part of an HOA from my search. I’m not saying there are no “good” HOAs, but I’ve heard too many horror stories, and good HOAs can become bad HOAs over time, and your only recourse is to move. No thanks.

I don’t think they should be banned, per se, they definitely need reigned in as far as what they can mandate and an opt-out mechanism. I’m not sure how the latter would work if there’s things like street maintenance, etc that’s part of it, but I’m sure some solution could be found.

Oh, yeah, that goes without saying. Report anyone whose behavior warrants it. I’m just mainly reminding people that blocking can be a way to take control of your experience. It took me a while to fully appreciate the block button and get over my FOMO (in the earlier days of Lemmy, blocking even a few people would cut down the amount of content drastically; thankfully that’s no longer the case).

Semi-specific (but still intentionally vague) example for “block” candidates are some accounts that even the mods are like “Look, I don’t like them either, but they’re not breaking any rules”. But, in general, just don’t be afraid to block what or whoever stresses you out.

The point of my post is protecting one’s own mental health. I’m not here to police the Fediverse. Report people if it’s warranted, block if they’re a source of stress or make the place unenjoyable.