Power Outage and SimpliSafe

My power went out at 3:00 am and wasn't restored until 11:00 am.

Less than a minute after the power went out, my SimpliSafe Base Station started announcing network trouble.  Ok.  But it kept announcing network trouble about every minute and I was trying to get to sleep.

I took out my phone and opened the SimpliSafe app in order to turn off the voice completely.  (I've already had door chimes and entry announcements turned off as those get annoying as heck.*  But I didn't mind the Armed and Off messages, which are in the "Status" category, which sadly also includes the endlessly repeating network trouble messages.

It wasn't easy to get through to the base station.  I figured that was because the wifi router was down, and it only worked with direct communication from my phone to the base station when it would try to use the router first.  But eventually I did get through and shut the messages off.  And was able to get back to sleep.  (I was in deep panic for about 10 minutes worried that somehow I would not be able to do this, but persistence paid off.)

(*One of the curious but unfortunate things is if you have door chimes or announcements enabled for any entry sensor, you have to get some announcement or chime (you can choose which) for every entry sensor.  So I couldn't just have an announcement for the back door, which I hardly ever use and might like to have such indication, without also having an announcement or chime for the front door, which is what gets annoying as heck.  I tried just having a chime on the front door and decided that was little less annoying than the announcement.)

To avoid having this situation happen again, I'm going to have to keep all the voice messages off, and I miss some of them. 

Blinking LED strips

A few years ago, I discovered that lighting up my 'home office' (which is actually...my kitchen) with ambient lighting in the dark corners helped avoid eyestrain late at night.  I've taken it as a requirement since then to be sure there is background lighting for ever screen in the house.  Watching video in darkness is bad for your eyes because of unnatural light changes.

Around one corner, above the refrigerator and near my electric vent, where it's always dark, I used an LED strip, placed on top of the sound absorbers.

So far, two of these LED strips have failed.  They work fine for about two years or so, and then something happens, and they start blinking.

I've always noticed that when the blinking starts, the power supply is quite warm.  Online sources often say you should check the power supply.  But none of the power supplies have gone bad.

Instead, what seems to happen is that the strip draws way more current than it is supposed to.  As it heats up, it draws more and more current.  That then forces the (fully working as intended) power supply to shut down for awhile.  About a second later the power supply fires up and tries again.  But the same thing happens.  So...blinking.

Now actually putting one of these LED strips on top of my (fire rated, acrylic) sound absorbers is a non-standard usage.  And I just lay them there without removing the paper backing.  Possibly because of that, they are generally running too warm and eventually develop an issue as described, a thermal runaway.

These lights have never given me problems actually attached to a TV or monitor.

Anyway, clearly strip lights are not good here.  What I've been successful with before are mini LED spotlights.  I have not needed to replace those, even though they are also installed on top of the refrigerator (but not on top of the sound absorbers).  I can aim two of them to fill in the two walls in the corner behind the refrigerator, eliminating the eye straining darkness.

Now, there are larger ambient light products that all look interesting.  But most of them suffer from a fundamental flaw.  They are operated by push button or app or remote control.  That's OK maybe if you have one.  But if you want the whole room lit up, you want to have them on the same power strip or whatever is needed to turn them all on and off at once.  But I also don't like the idea of having an app that powers them "all" because that presumed you bought "all" once and forever at the same time.  Instead, what organically happens is you keep adding to a growing set of lights to achieve the full desired effect.

Honestly, I just keep all my kitchen ambient lighting running all the time.  I probably shouldn't, though I think it's a trivial amount of spent electricity for making my life much more convenient. 

So generally the best idea is for ambient lighting to have no switch at all.

The mini LED spotlights have no switch at all, they plug into "USB" power and draw only 1 watt.  (It's best to say 1w or below so they don't get hot.)

Much Greater Risk of Buying Wrong Item with Digital Media

 Today I was searching for the acclaimed documentary No Other Land.  Amazon first said "Currently Unavailable" but I realized that was DVD and looked for other version in the main search results.

I cannot retrace my steps at all (the history was completely expunged by Amazon and Google somehow immediately after my purchase was final) to see page where I made my mistake, but I could have started from a page for a different movie not realizing it was a different movie.  I somehow thought I was on a page for No Other Land, and it only offered to stream or buy, which seemed to make sense.  I chose buy, figuring then I could download it.  It took me to a page warning that I would not be able to view the movie in 4K because of my device (ok, 2k would be fine by me) and there was a "view" and a "download."  I repeated selected the "download" and nothing happened.  So finally I started to view the video through Chrome and all.

Only then I realized that I had ordered the wrong movie, after watching 2 seconds.  But two seconds two late because all digital media sales are final once watched, no matter how little.

I then tried to retrace my steps, but the only history prior to the movie window was the the Amazon search results.  Digital movie purchases show up in a different folder within Purchases and Returns and the only option was to review.

If I had ordered a Blu Ray, as I would have preferred to do, I would have caught this error in 10 different ways before it was too late.

It would show in a purchase screen (not a "viewing" screen).  It would show up in my email to be checked a few hours later.  It would be delivered and I'd see the name on the sealed disc package.  And then I could have returned it.  If somehow I had opened the movie, I might not have been able to return it, but I could sell the disc and recover some amount of the cost, or donate it.

I finally found the film through YouTube which actually linked to the movie on Rumble.  The Rumble version appears to be the genuine article, but only standard definition (480p), or perhaps less, some kind of lowered resolution copy.  It does not appear to come from the producer but from some blogger with 11 followers.

There seemed to be another version in high definition on Youtube.  But if you look carefully at the title, and the description, you see it isn't the movie at all, but a "Review" of it which consists basically of endless junk such as pictures of the DVD package and the producers appearance at Cannes and various logos with various disparaging fades.  Nearly two hours of junk which profits from YouTube royalties which value time watched and how many, so for each person sucked in (especially if they download the film) they could get some royalties for junk, scamming off the original title.  (And in the search results there are many similar other "reviews" just with slightly different titles.)

Here's the actual Title at YouTube from the one I looked at.

No Other Land (2024) Movie ‧ Oscar Winning Documentary | Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra | Review & Facts

Well, obtaining that was not as bad as my mistaken purchase at Amazon anyway, though I hate the fact I subsidized scammers.  Sadly I doubt the producers get any royalties from Rumble, and I guess that's the whole point of being "locked out by Hollywood."

Another version even added "Full" just before the "Movie".