The Green Shed

Sun Kissed

The tips of the snow-covered San Fransisco Peaks are illuminated at sunset beneath a darkening blue sky.
The tips of the snow-covered San Fransisco Peaks are illuminated at sunset beneath a darkening blue sky.
Date Taken
March 02, 2023
Camera
SONY ILCE-7RM4A
Lens
FE 85mm F1.8
Focal Length
85.0 mm
Shutter Speed
1/80
Aperture
f/9.0
ISO
100
Keywords
Alpenglow, Landscape, Sunset, Winter

Less AI

I’ve grown tired of AI/GPT news, but I apparently don’t have the self control to just stop visiting Hacker News. So, instead, I installed Sprinkles, which will inject custom JS/CSS into any webpage you want (just like the ol' greasemonkey).

I added this custom script:

// news.ycombinator.com.js
const dimTopics = ['gpt', ' ai ', 'openai', 'copilot'];

for (const el of document.querySelectorAll('.titleline')){
  for (const t of dimTopics){
    if (el.textContent.toLowerCase().includes(t)){
      let titleRow = el.closest('tr');
      let pointsRow = titleRow.nextElementSibling;

      titleRow.remove();
      pointsRow.remove();      
    }
  }
}

et voilà, a more pleasant HN experience.

I expect to add more topics to my list over time.

I will never understand people who like code linters.

Spent the entire day snow skiing yesterday, for the first time in 15+ years. Woke up today without any soreness at all.

Been lifting weights for the last 3 years (for the first time in my life). Turns out it makes a difference.

Eons

Light snow covers the upper edges of the cliffs of the Grand Canyon.
Light snow covers the upper edges of the cliffs of the Grand Canyon.
Date Taken
February 27, 2023
Camera
SONY ILCE-7RM4A
Lens
FE 85mm F1.8
Focal Length
85.0 mm
Shutter Speed
1/1000
Aperture
f/8.0
ISO
100
Keywords
Grand Canyon, Landscape

Rented skis to go snow skiing for the first time in over a decade tomorrow. I’m pretty apprehensive. I’m much older, but also in way better shape than the last time I went.

Went to the Grand Canyon today, which was an audible on original plans, and it was exactly the right decision. Amazing weather, amazing light up there. Very few people. I was able to just sit and look, in silence, for long stretches at a time. And I took a zillion photos.

Home Assistant Config for a Basic JSON REST Device

After much effort (and help from the forums), I was able to get a config working for my backyard weather station.

My station is custom built hardware, and returns a very simple JSON object with its current state when queried.

The json it returns looks like this:

{"timestamp":"2022-03-12 09:35:36 -0700",
 "temperature_c":15.8720368908,
 "temperature_f":60.56966640344,
 "humidity":27.009330285,
 "pressure":965.103717974,
 "dewpoint_c":-3.0690760974329714,
 "dewpoint_f":26.47566302462065}

And this is the Home Assistant configuration I needed to use to get the data into HASS:

rest:
  - resource: http://weather.local
    scan_interval: 60
    sensor:
      - name: Weather Station - Temperature
        value_template: '{{ value_json.temperature_f | round(1) }}'
        unit_of_measurement: '°F'
        device_class: temperature
        state_class: measurement
      - name: Weather Station - Humidity
        value_template: '{{ value_json.humidity | round(1) }}'
        unit_of_measurement: '%'
        device_class: humidity
        state_class: measurement
      - name: Weather Station - Pressure
        value_template: '{{ value_json.pressure | round(1) }}'
        unit_of_measurement: 'mbar'
        device_class: atmospheric_pressure
        state_class: measurement
      - name: Weather Station - Dewpoint
        value_template: '{{ value_json.dewpoint_f | round(1) }}'
        unit_of_measurement: '°F'
        device_class: temperature
        state_class: measurement

Home Assistant is very powerful, but goodness is the learning curve steep. Documentation exists, but much of it is not helpful enough. I should probably contribute back some additional examples, at the least.

(Interesting side note: I asked ChatGPT to help me put together a configuration for this setup. It was able to do so, but the result was inefficient and used an older style of REST sensor setup. Human help in the forums led me to this solution.)

Thought experiment: a lossy compression algorithm that includes noise in the decompression phase. Every decompression is unique. 🤔

Home Assistant API Call for Setting Dimmable Lamp Brightness

I had to play around with the Home Assistant API to figure out how to set the brighness of a dimmable lamp. This is what ended up working.

My lamp was setup with brightness as a Number.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer your_token_goes_here" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"entity_id": "number.my_lamp", "value": 100}' http://homeassistant.local:8123/api/services/number/set_value