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fonix232

@ fonix232 @fedia.io

Posts
1
Comments
616
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • TIL: There is an open source "Alexa replacement" project

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  • The HA Voice Preview is a pretty solid device, but you're right, there isn't really any ready made Echo/Google Home Mini replacement device - primarily because all those devices are generally sold at a loss, or at cost at best, and subsidised by your data being sold.

    You won't be able to make a Google Home Mini contender for below $50, and at that price most people will opt for the former. Good quality speakers, microphones, local processing (like the XMOS chip in the Voice Preview) all cost money, and there's no subsidy to be made. Some older Echo devices are rootable, but the hardware tends to be somewhat exotic (meaning no open source support for specialised components), and there's little ongoing third party support (focus has been on the display-equipped models, and to run Android on them).

    All in all, "cheap" and "fully local open source voice assistant" don't really coexist.

  • TIL: There is an open source "Alexa replacement" project

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  • There were like, about two years between OpenHAB and HA being released. Former debuted in 2011, HA saw first release in 2013.

  • TIL: There is an open source "Alexa replacement" project

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  • I'm sorry, what?

    Googling "home assistant Spotify" results in the very link you've provided.

    And you can hardly expect a project like Home Assistant, with THOUSANDS of first party integrations, to cater to your specific needs, or to provide preferential treatment to companies like Spotify, who provide absolutely no support to the project.

    It also doesn't require a "techie setup", but following a quite straightforward guide, that culminates in clicking about maybe a dozen buttons (most of them being "I accept" to various terms and policies), then copying a handful of readily provided strings into the right fields. It's simple enough that even my tech illiterate father can do it.

    Home Assistant at the end of the day is NOT an Alexa (or other voice assistant) replacement, but a smarthome control hub OS. That it provides a voice assistant interface is quite secondary to its main mission.

  • Is Pepsi ok?

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  • Haha, I'm glad you feel intrigued.

    Feel free to drop me a PM/chat/whatever your fedi platform supports, I check every few hours so should be able to respond with relative ease.

  • If Danny DeVito were to guest star as an alien in an episode of Star Trek, would you rather see him portray a Tellarite or a Ferengi?

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  • My vote goes for a generally tall and slender species.

    I think he'd play the hell out of a Kelpien for example. Say, Saru's long lost brother they don't talk about, at all?

  • Is Pepsi ok?

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  • There really isn't a favourite, I'd recommend you experiment yourself until you find the sweet spot for you.

    Again, use the Cube Cola recipe as a basis for getting the amounts right, and try the various "leaked Coca Cola" recipes that utilise oils to get the right ratios.

    For example, the ratios of the Cube Cola recipe are:

    • 62 unit orange
    • 50 unit lime
    • 16 unit lemon
    • 12 unit nutmeg
    • 7 unit cassia
    • 2 unit coriander
    • 2 unit lavender
    • 2 unit neroli

    With unit being 0.01ml.

    In contrast the ratios of the Pemberton recipe are:

    • 40 unit orange
    • 60 unit lemon
    • 20 unit cinnamon
    • 20 unit nutmeg
    • 20 unit neroli
    • 10 unit coriander

    This will give you almost the same amount of oil (0.154ml vs 0.170ml), but a wildly different flavour result.

    Playing with the ratios of the orange-lime-lemon will shift the base cola flavour. I personally found that mixing different orange oils instead of straight up "orange oil" (in my mix I used tangerine, clementine, blood orange, bitter orange, sweet orange, neroli, bergamot) provides a much deeper, richer cola base (think like the difference between a cheap store brand vs Pepsi). This is where you can do most of the experimenting, first try to shift around the internal ratios (e.g. Cube-Cola has it at 130 units total for the citrus oils, so keep it 130 units but feel free to go e.g. 70-46-12 on the orange-lime-lemon, or swap the lemon and lime, etc.), then the orange-to-all ratios can be tuned too (just, again, go in small steps).

    Nutmeg, cassia and coriander define how "spicy" the cola tastes. They add a different kind of richness (more of a warmth really), and I can't emphasise just how careful you have to be with these as even just a fraction more can seriously change (mostly ruin) the flavours. Especially cassia. Even in the Cube-Cola recipe I had to reduce it from 0.07ml to 0.025ml for it to not be overpowering - the Pemberton recipe on the other hand emphasises it to the point where it ISN'T overpowering (which is surprising, I know).

    Neroli is optional but I found that like my previously mentioned orange base mix, it can add a subtle yet noticeable richness. Just like the spice oils, I recommend caution, move in VERY small increments when you change things.

    I'd recommend you use the Cube Cola measures for unit base, as that wastes little to no oil if an experiment turns out bad.

  • Is Pepsi ok?

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  • Well, as I mentioned in my previous comment, some flavour profiles definitely go better with whiskey than with just themselves. I'm yet to try the Jameson's raw cola combo yet, so can't say if that would be the case for it too. It doesn't seem to be available in the UK sadly.

  • Is Pepsi ok?

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  • It really doesn't take much time though? Like, making 6-8 variants takes about an hour, and half of that is taking notes.

  • Is Pepsi ok?

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  • Hope I instilled some curiosity. Honestly it's not even that expensive to get started with (you can get food grade oils for about $40, then all you need is gum arabic, citric acid, sweeteners and E150 for colour, and finally vanilla for a final touch), unless you want to go real fancy with adjustable pipettes and such.

    The recipes are all down to ratios of the oils, so if you do begin to experiment I recommend:

    • making a big batch of the base syrup (sugar, citric acid, water, vanilla, lime juice, E150, etc.) as this doesn't change much, but ingredients can be fine-tuned at the end
    • making small batches of the "7X" mix (the Cube-Cola recipe actually calls for minuscule amounts, we're talking down to 0.05ml, so use that as a starting point and shift the ratios for the Pemberton recipe), mixing it with the gum arabic (again use the Cube-Cola recipe for ratios, this is basically to make the oils water soluble without using alcohol)
    • taste test the batches, and make sure you take very strict notes (scientific method comes into play, as you will be most likely mixing 6-8 variants like I did, keeping meticulous notes as to what you changed compared to previous recipes helps honing in the right flavour)
    • start with pure white crystal sugar for sweetening - various sweeteners have after-tastes or the commercial variants have additives that cause foaming or separation, so before you go sugar-free, tune in the flavour you want, then experiment with sweeteners.
    • if you can get some, try phosphoric acid instead of citric acid - much more sour and has lesser health effects, meaning you can use 1/10-1/20 as much.
    • neroli oil is kinda spenny but worth the money given how little you can put into the mix and still have a strong effect on the flavour.
    • Do NOT go overboard with the lavender oil. In fact go super duper careful with it because one minor spill and it WILL stick around on your clothes, skin, mouth, kitchen tiles, everything, for weeks.
    • same goes for cassia oil. Be very, very, very careful, unless you want to smell like you're sticking entire cinnamon sticks up your arse.
    • an adjustable pipette costs about $30, but is immensely helpful. I ended up getting a 1ml with 0.001ml stepping and a 5ml with 0.025ml stepping. Tips are cheap, and easily connected/ejected as these pipettes are designed for lab use, so you can ideally dispose of the tips without contaminating anything else. Which is important because of the previous two points.
    • Mix in a tall glass. For the gum arabic mixture and beyond I recommend using a small motorised milk frother (it's like, $5), as that fucker needs lots of work to dissolve.
    • careful with heat exposure. The gum arabic base (gum arabic + water mixture before adding the oils), and the base syrup (water and sugar) can take the heat, but the flavourings - let it be the vanilla, the 7x mix, or even the caffeine citrate - can't. Make sure that everything is room temp when mixing the latter or dealing with a mixture containing them. I once overheated the 7X mix with the milk frother by accident, and it turned out to be the most disgusting, bitterest juice straight from Satan's asshole.

    I think I've gotten all the generic advice down I can. I do have a bunch of notes tucked away somewhere, I'll try to find them!

  • Is Pepsi ok?

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  • It was the Pemberton recipe, not sure why I remembered 1950s though!

  • Emails Reveal Epstein’s Ties to Mossad—But Corporate Media Looked Away

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  • But dare even mutter a sentence akin to "Mossad must have kompromat on half the US establishment" and you'll be labelled a conspiracy theorist...

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  • Also while the UN/ICJ/ICC did not commit him due to the suicide, the UN War Crimes Commission did indict him as a war criminal, which, in civilised countries, does mean the withdrawal of certain rights, including the right to privacy, therefore the DNA is still processable.

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  • I do see your point, however the fact that Hitler gave the direct orders (often well documented) that were later deemed criminal, I'd presume that would be enough to assume criminal status.

    Also, yknow, defending Hitler on technicalities is like defending a paedo on the distinction between paedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia - legally speaking you'd be correct, but in reality it just makes you sound like you're supporting the person in their acts...

  • Is Pepsi ok?

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  • I've actually been making various cola recipes in the meth lab I call a kitchen for the past ~2 years now, ranging from the leaked 1950s Coke recipe, Cube Cola, OpenCola, and a number of other variations, including my own sets.

    In these experimentations I've started noticing the actual flavour differences between different colas. The issue is that these flavours are not something you'd recognise as they're incredibly diluted. For example one recipe calls for a total of 15 MILLILITRES of various flavour oils, to make approximately 70-80 LITRES of cola. Yes you read that right, about half Oz of flavourings (sugar not included) to make 37-40 bottles of 64oz cola. In comparison, when I made my orange soda, I had to use approximately 60ml of flavourings to make TWO litres. 2oz of flavourings to make one bottle of 64oz orange soda.

    And it's insane how just a slight imbalance can alter the flavour. This recipe I mentioned calls for 0.7ml (about 6 drops) of cassia oil (basically, cinnamon). The cassia oil I sourced was so pure that that amount waaaay overpowered the other flavours and I had to tone it down to 0.25ml, nearly 1/3. Mind you that cinnamon coke wasn't bad, just... incredibly cinnamony. Great for a bourbon mixer, pretty solid for a Long Island, but in itself it was just too strong.

    Once I made it right I started experimenting, reducing it by 10-20-30%, and the flavour profile shifted a TON. We're talking barely recognisable. under 0.2ml (so 20% reduction from baseline), the lavender (yes, lavender is part of the cola flavour ensemble!) started coming through real strong. Upping the coriander/cilantro oil from 0.02ml to 0.03ml shifted it into an incredibly spicy range - you could literally top it up with white rum and people would think you used spiced rum! Or reducing the amount of nutmeg to increase the warmth of the drink - with the slightly higher cassia oil ratio, and reduced nutmeg, this ventured into a hot choc drink made of Terry's Choc Orange... Without the creaminess of the chocolate.

    I've also experimented with about a dozen different citrus oils - bitter orange, sweet orange, bitter orange leaf, mandarin, tangerine, the list goes on. And they all subtly changed the flavour, like the transition between coke and pepsi. You can't put your finger on it at first, because the main cola flavour - the same you'd get from any cola drink, including the cheap supermarket brand ones - was there, but the subtle background flavours were all so different, and again, they're so dilute, you can't name them proper. Just guess on what makes it different.

  • Is Pepsi ok?

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  • Each and every product is fine-tuned to local markets. Coke will taste about the same throughout Europe but will have a starkly different flavour in the US (due to differences in sweetening, but also the base syrup flavour profile is quite different). Pepsi in my experience tends to be the most similar between different regions.

  • White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia

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  • So, Conservapedia, but with even more hare brained conspiracy theories?

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  • Also, it is internationally generally agreed upon that criminals forfeit their rights to personally identifying information, such as fingerprints and DNA evidence.

    Given Hitler's regime has been internationally agreed to be war criminals and have committed crimes against humanity, even if Hitler himself chose the coward's way out to avoid being convicted for these crimes, I think we can all agree on him being responsible for these crimes thus is essentially convicted posthumous.

    Therefore combining the two, Hitler was and is a criminal therefore privacy protection laws don't apply, therefore his DNA should be freely usable by the scientific community.

  • Marjorie Taylor Greene introduces bill to end H-1B visas days after Trump backs the program: ‘Americans first’

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  • The fact that you believe there's actual talent overflow in the US makes me question just what you might consider "talent". A warm body with the ability to turn on a computer is not "talent".

  • Marjorie Taylor Greene introduces bill to end H-1B visas days after Trump backs the program: ‘Americans first’

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  • No, the talent simply isn't there in the numbers companies would need them. And this isn't limited to the US only - even here in the UK, it's a struggle to hire good talent, because the fields are incredibly muddled, especially since AI-aided engineering came to be.

    For example, I work in software engineering. My role, aside from being a senior engineer, a systems architect and designer, also involves hiring. We're actually hiring in a number of countries, US included, and I'm overseeing most of it. The applicant rates are simply abysmal. HR pre-filters our candidates, and that usually boils things down from around 1000 CVs to about 50 who actually make it to first roster, and from that 50, we end up actually interviewing maybe 5, because the rest obviously lack the required (and clearly indicated!) skills. And even from those 5, more often than not we choose none to hire because they don't really reach the bare minimum for the position (and to be perfectly fair, the bar isn't set too high). I've recently had a candidate who had a Masters in Computer Science and some 8 years of work experience, yet couldn't name base components in the specific segment he's been working in, nor could he define basic terms like SOLID or KISS.

    And I'm hearing similar experiences from other fields too. Reality is, there's not a lack of people but a lack of talent, which often needs to be imported. And blocking that import will simply result in the companies moving to locations where they can source the talent or where the talent is willing to move to. Previously that was the US, because even though the situation was quite shite, your country has done a great job hiding that via media propaganda. Now it isn't, simply because y'all had to elect a racist demented dipshit.