If you keep doing this, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN in the intended spirit, we'd really appreciate it.
Oh cool, even the site admins are ganging up on me. Most of those comments are taken entirely out of context, or direct replies to comments that were replies to my own, but you do you.
I am using HN in the intended spirit, and I'm sorry that you're letting the echo chamber color your perception of perfectly acceptable comments. You can email me if you'd like to continue discussing this in a more professional manner (why else would I fill it...?), but I have to say this is an appalling showing of leadership on your behalf, and I hope you address it soon.
Public intimidation does not make for a safe and healthy culture. Period.
No one is ganging up on you—the examples I listed contain plenty of personal attacks. That's clearly against the site guidelines and of course we have to ban accounts that won't stop doing it, so please stop.
One, maybe two examples contain personal attacks. You're going deep into threads to find these. Sounds more like a witch hunt than a fair and balanced analysis of my contributions. Ganging up is an understatement.
The rest? Get real. Cherry picking at it's finest. You're barking up the wrong tree here and I have no problem defending those comments ad nauseum.
I'll say it again since you're really not getting it: feel free to email me if you'd like to continue this in a more professional manner. I'll keep flagging comments that blatantly ignore this.
How many times is enough? I've now politely asked three times to be contacted via email if you need to, twice specifically for this altercation. Please don't make the same mistake a fourth time, as an admin and representative of this dying site.
If you're posting publicly on the site, it's appropriate for moderators to respond publicly on the site. Moderation comments are important not just as a one-to-one conversation, but as a signal to the community.
Plex lost their best users by missing the point of self hosting entirely. Nobody wants to deal with third party downtime, even if it is rare and intermittent.
I think most products go through phases like this. Plex has some diehards that have stuck around (I think it's just buyers remorse for the Plex pass) but I think they are at a 5th or 6th tier of "customer" at this point, seeing the continuous churn spiral they are fighting.
I haven't really encountered any issues besides the downtime that has occured maybe twice since I bought the yearly two years ago.
Everything just works and I never really notice those three submenus except when I'm logging into a new device and it takes like ~10 seconds to unpin them. Everything has been basically perfect for me.
> I haven't really encountered any issues besides the downtime that has occured maybe twice since I bought the yearly two years ago.
> I never really notice those three submenus except when I'm logging into a new device and it takes like ~10 seconds to unpin them.
Maybe it's just me, but the way you've written these sentences makes it sound like you have buyers remorse. Doesn't sound like things are "basically perfect."
FWIW, I left Plex two years ago for Jellyfin, and haven't looked back. Never even bought the garbage Plex Pass.
How does that sound like buyers remorse? Twice over two years is essentially nothing, and I do the ~10 seconds unpinning like twice a year. It's so close to basically no issues I consider Plex to be perfect for me.
I don't think you understand what I mean. Plex has worked perfectly for two years straight. These 2 issues have taken up less than ~2 minutes of my life. That is equivalent to perfect from my point of view. Stop being unreasonably pedantic about my own words.
Don’t forget about 3rd party security, they were recently hacked exposing customer accounts details. thier push for online accounts is what ruled it out for me.
I’m asking out of laziness.. my local server has pi hole set up, and the other devices use that for DNS thru Tailscale, but I’m not sure what gets blocked for stuff running on the server. I recall some Tailscale setup involved a flag to disable some DNS thing. Hmmm
In my case not really. There is server side scanning in which plex shares data about your media with their backend. Not sure if there is any setting to disable that.
As far as the web client goes ublock origin handles it for me.
Ok. As per my above comment, it should be possible to filter out the analytics/sentry via DNS using pi hole. In theory, you'd just have to set up your Plex machine to use pi hole DNS ad blocking, and ensure that the pi hole ___domain list includes analytics domains. And Tailscale MagicDNS with the primary DNS server being your Plex/pi hole server, with your other devices configured with Tailscale, should block everything.
The only potential blocker I can see is whether the HDMI streaming device makes HTTP requests, in which case it would need to use the Tailscale proxy, and I'm not sure if that's supported.
You can’t auth directly to your server from a Plex app with a local account anymore? I thought you could still at some point in the past but haven’t tried it in awhile. I know you can still do that from a web browser (I believe)..
How did these Twist bulbs account for differences in time zone? If I have some of these lights and I move hundreds of miles to a new time zone, plug the same lights into the new home, how do they lights know?
Yea great question. The bulbs were provisioned via an iOS app and there was a Wifi bulb sold that had a speaker in it (part of our pivot towards more marketable products)
The bulbs could have been updated either by A) having a wifi bulb that then synchronized each other node via a low power mesh network, or B) by opening the app and connecting to the network.
We effectively used the BLE radio to make a mesh network and a BLE device (phone) could connect and send and receive over the mesh.
This is exactly a product idea I had and a product I have been desperate to find and buy. Included the "no cloud connection or hub needed" being a desired feature.
Instead I now have a crappy overly complex setup that involves a bunch of lifx bulbs, a flic hub and buttons and a synology NAS running some python scripts from task scheduler every few minutes to set the desired temperature at certain time ranges (hard coded).
That Twist idea sound(ed) perfect. What a bummer that it didnt work out.
I kinda wish industry would converge on one standard for the devices themselves and compete on "IOT cloud/hub controller" instead of trying to build tiny closed ecosystems around eachother.
MQTT + some schema for typical devices would be a dream. Maybe have some of those devices be able to act as hub themselves with option to connect to "bigger" controller (whether cloud or on premise) but still be able to handle basic functions when say internet is down
That kind of already exists with Home Assistant. Granted, it often feels like a thin wrapper around lots of tiny closed ecosystems, but the fact that most things interoperate well enough means I can recommend it.
Matter/Thread exist as well, and some smart device makers claim to already have adopted it, so we'll see how that all goes.
I used it few years ago and it had problem of occasionally disconnecting from MQ (I was using external one) and just... not reconnecting.
> Matter/Thread exist as well, and some smart device makers claim to already have adopted it, so we'll see how that all goes.
I'm kinda worried it will be the usual bloated standard by comitee result; tho I guess even if that happens it would still be better to have to implement one bloated standard instead of dozen incompatible ones.
Also at least wikipedia page says its "Proprietary, by certification" so eh, I'm worried
You're kind of describing home assistant. It integrates with all the various non interoperable standards and gives them the same interface. (In the ui sense, but also in the sense that you can write scripts that cross manufacturer boundaries.)
I know, but I'd prefer if it came that way from manufacturer instead of hacking at it away.
Like, I converted one of (sadly out of production) mpower pro power strips (it was great, cheap 6 socket with power measurement per socket) to talk to it but it wasn't exactly great experience.
The config of IoT devices should be just "start an app, point it to your (or cloud) controller, done", not "browse compatibility list and hope HASS supports it and the manufacturer won't break that support on update".
I wonder how much it would cost to put an gps receiver in every lightbulb? If you can get a gps signal you can get a rough guesstimate of the bulbs ___location and time and therefore adjust to fit the local circadian rhythm.
Or maybe you could sync to a local radio time station?
I would easily pay 30+ USD per bulb if it had time-sync and NO internet connection (LAN optional and not a must-have).
Actually I already did. LIFX day night bulbs cost more than that and don't have the functionality that you had in your product out of the box.
Actually personally I would pay as much as 50 USD per bulb for standalone bulbs that just follow a cycle pre-set by myself over BLE or wifi or even a freaking USB port :p
Maybe they exist but I haven't been able to find them.
$2-3 but GPS antenna is pretty bulky so forget it.
Local radio time is generally iffy if you can't afford bigger antenna. Syncing my watch is basically impossible indoors, althought you might be able to get a bit bigger antenna in a bulb... but they will also be in much worse locations (near walls and inside metal enclosures)
If they had disclosed their involvement in their profile at least I could give them the benefit of the doubt but in this case, like the other commenters, I assumed he had used the tool as a customer and had a positive experience, not that he was literally the founder of the group making the tool.
That’s not to say his opinion is not wanted, just that the potential bias should be made transparent.
There aren‘t any DMs on Hacker News, and if he didn’t post that comment I would have thought it was a disinterested commenter recommending something they had used, not somebody who works on the project. The cultural norm here is to disclose when you are recommending your own product and it’s not childish to point out when people fail to do that, it’s reinforcing that cultural norm.
Good thing they... (checks notes) ...know exactly who made the post and can reach out to them on LinkedIn or email them.
Cultural norms are reinforced by good examples, there's nothing good about snippy public comments. Reaching out to them privately isn't hard, and, dare I say it: is more inclusive. I don't think I need to explain the origin of the word assume.
It's impolite to assume on someone's behalf in public.
Could you explain how messaging in private is so hard to do if you have no problem making the comment in public...?
You seem to have a really hard time grasping that this entire comment thread we are part of wouldn't exist if OP had reached out about their concerns in private.
> It's impolite to assume on someone's behalf in public.
They asked a question, they didn’t state an assumption.
And why is it impolite.
> Could you explain how messaging in private is so hard to do if you have no problem making the comment in public...?
we’re not talking about difficulty, we’re talking about politeness.
> You seem to have a really hard time grasping that this entire comment thread we are part of wouldn't exist if OP had reached out about their concerns in private.
i don’t think i’d be here if it weren’t for you calling him impolite.
in fact, i’m quite surprised you would assume i have a hard time grasping why this thread exists in public rather than messaging me in private. would you mind messaging me on another social media platform directly before you do that? i hear that’s the polite thing to do here.
And yet you haven't sent me any emails, hatware. My door is always open, why not practice what you preach rather than be repeatedly harsh and make a scene over existing community norms? Crowley subsequently disclosed the affiliation, we're good.
Maybe you're newer here; It's a courteous social more of the HN community to be actively transparent about potential conflicts of interest.
I'm actually a fan of Crowley, he's got quite a brain.
You get what you give. I don't think I need to send emails to the one who has no problem calling others out in public.
It's pretty simple, I requested that concerns about conflict of interest are taken offline. But, here you are, making snide remarks in public at another person. Zero for two.
For what it's worth, I spoke up on this because I would be quite annoyed if someone did not give me the courtesy of correcting a mistake in private before broadcasting publicly about it. It doesn't matter if it comes from a stranger or a trusted friend. I can tell you aren't picking this up, but I'm happy to explain it ad nauseum so you can be a better individual to your peers.
>It's a courteous social more of the HN community
From what I can tell, the "norm" is to gang up on new folks without thinking critically about it. It's reddit with less complexity and more ego.
You get what you give.
> why not practice what you preach
From your profile: "I subscribe to the ideology of live and let live."
There is a lot of value in the CoI being visible quickly. While with an email there could be an unbound delay in the CoI being visible. And often visibility for such things drops off quite hard.
If 90% of the impressions happen within an hour of the post happening and it takes 2 hours for the CoI being visible, then 90% of people probably weren't aware of it.
I regularily don't check emails for hours at a time, and would really apprciate someone publicly "calling me out" if I were to forget disclosing a CoI. And I am sure we could as @dang for how quickly impressions drop off on HN specifically. Reddit is the most similar platform and there, a topic usually is active for a few hours at most, so after that window, the disclosure would be practically useless.
And how is stating a disagreement bullying? You can just disengage if tgis is that unpleasant to you.
Sure, it'd be nicer to privately do it, but IMO in such cases, informing the public is the more important part rather than being nice. (There were no insults, no accusations of it being intentional or such, which I'd personally count as nice enough)
Or do you believe we have to coddle everyone online? (I am being serious, and do not intend to troll, but can see how it can be taken as trolling)
Because engineers (and managers) contrive problems like this to the point they are useless solutions.