Category: 5. Personal Matters
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Unwrapping and Experiences With Installing Devolo Home Automation Thermostats
As my first (rather small) home automation project I decided to install remote controlled radiator thermostats. (This is also known as a central thermostat and comes with most modern apartments, but then my new Berlin apartment is rather old and charming. It has no central thermostat, making me run around the apartment every morning to…
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Re: Your unsolicited email / our joint problem
To: ana.tackett@orcapr.com, eastonjohnston@iodimpact.com, digitalpragency@gmail.com, RobertP@informationhub.biz, gina@bloc.io, pms990@gmail.com, jillr@blackswansmedia.com, davidf@lfpr.com, khurst@harriswilliams.com, nancyt@vorticom.com, james@planet-dm.com, … Dear PR professional: With respect to our joint problem, Stanford researchers have found a solution! Please see here for the answer: http://www.scs.stanford.edu/~dm/home/papers/remove.pdf With kind regards, Dirk Riehle PS: If the research paper above doesn’t load, please see this copy: https://dirkriehle.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/remove.pdf
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The Humor That is Alexa 2 / 2
So the Echo Dot seems like a good addition to a larger apartment or house. In addition, Amazon promises you can order it through your existing Alexa device. So I tried: Me: “Alexa, order an Echo Dot.” Echo: “I can only order product for Prime members. So I added Echo Dot to your shopping list.…
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The Humor That is Alexa 1 / 2
I was watching an old TV show rerun with a character in it called Alexa. My Amazon Echo (trigger word is Alexa) was also listening: TV set: “Alexa, stop doing that!” Echo: “Sorry, I don’t understand what you are saying.” TV set (raised voice): “Alexa, don’t talk to me like that!” Echo: “Sorry, I still…
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I Want My Computer to be as Easy to Use as My Rice Cooker
There is a (by now oldish) saying, attributed to Bjarne Stroustrup: I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone. I used to riff on this with the following variant: For…
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The Looming Bubble in Lego Bricks
In 2014, for a course that teaches students teamwork, I bought 20 sets of basic lego bricks for a bridge building exercise. The cost per set was 20 Euro. This year the number of students in our project courses exceeded what could be done with this basic set of legos and so I looked to…