At my insistence we bought a Canon laser all in one printer in 2022. It's turning out to be more trouble than it's worth, and it can't do some stuff that some family members need, like printing on thick card stock.

I do, however, like the fact that the Canon reports toner levels to HA. Is there a normie inkjet printer that also has this functionality and won't fleece us with BS ink subscriptions and lock us into using their ink?

I'd also like it to be JUST a printer, not an all-in-one. I'm looking at a dedicated scanner, which doesn't need an HA integration.

I just thought I'd put this out there for comment.

Semelparity is when a species only reproduces once in a lifetime. Usually semelparous species die soon after giving birth. Yinrih, however, are both semelparous and long-lived thanks to a high degree of parental care conferring a survival advantage.

Yinrih live on average around 724 Terran years (let's say 700 to make the math easier). A yinrih pup reaches maturity at around 53 Terran years, but let's assume because of social factors they don't reproduce until around the age of 100 on average.

The average litter size is 1.5 times the number of contributing parents. Yinrih can have between 2 to 12 biological parents. This group of parents is called a childermoot. Let's say that once you account for childhood death, infertility, conscious decision not to have pups, etc, the number of pups in a litter that go on to become parents is about 1.2 times the size of the childermoot.

Let's say at year zero there are 50000 newly hatched yinrih. They reproduce at year 100, giving a total population of 50000*1.2 + 50000 = 60000 This trend continues until year 700. The first cohort of 50000 yinrih dies, so from here out we subtract the population older than 700. The population reaches 3 billion (my threshold for achieving orbital flight) at around the year 5750.

So the result is a camera that yells 'Doggo!' more or less at random.

This is a simple image made in Blender showing a ringed planet during the summer solstice. I have stats for the yinrih's homeworld of Yih, density, radius, etc. I used the equation found on the Wikipedia article for Roche limit to determine the dimensions of the ring for this image using the following numbers.

Radius of Yih: 6.44e6 m Density of Yih: 4810 kg/m^3 Density of object to be ringified: 3344 kg/m^3 (I used Earth's moon)

Plugging and chugging gives us a Roche limit of 9.16e6 meters, or 1.42 Yih radii.

I assumed the Roche limit itself represented the outer radius of the ring, and that the inner radius was more or less arbitrary, which I set to about 1.14 radii.

This gives us a ring that's a lot closer than I was imagining, which presents some lore problems. The ring in the image above would look like two glowing horns if one were on the night side in the mid-latitudes and not, as I envision, a partially eclipsed but still obvious arch shape.

It's already well established that the Bright Way uses a golden arch in lieu of a halo in religious art thanks to the ring, and the ring is popularly conceived of as a contiguous arch for at least part of the year, giving rise to phrases such as "chasing the end of the ring" meaning to go on a fool's errand.

If I wanted to keep using the assumptions listed earlier, the only way to change the outer radius of the ring is to increase the density of the doomed celestial body.

I can, of course, ignore this and just make it whatever I want. I'm already ignoring how ephemeral rings are on a geologic time scale. And I could be making mistakes even within the parameters I mentioned because I'm running on 5 hours of sleep 🤷‍♂️.

We've been having trouble with ~~rodents (I assume squirrels)~~ in the crawl spaces on our second floor. I decided to stick a PIR sensor on the door to see if I could catch any movement, and sure enough, a bunch of movement around 1 AM this morning. (Correction, it was a possum, which makes sense in hindsight as they're nocturnal).

Big ol' stompy walking war crimes! Not in the least bit realistic, but man are they ever awesome! For the purposes of this post a mech is any limbed or otherwise zoomorphic vehicle that is controlled by a living pilot either internally or externally.

How did they come about?

What range of sizes do they come in? How do larger models get around the square-cube law (if you care to justify such things).

How are they piloted? Do they require a crew or can they be controlled solo?

What are their cultural associations? Are mech pilots highly esteemed or is the job just another job? Are mechs themselves worshiped as divine avatars? Are they merely tools of war?

Are their non-combat uses for mechs? Are they used in sports?

Are mechs commonplace or are they rare and powerful?

Can they transform?

I've already answered most of these questions for my own setting, but here's a rundown since Lemmy's default post sorting algorithm does not facilitate long-term discussions in the same way traditional forums do.

Yinrih went from conventional armor to powered armor, then gradually built bigger and bulkier until you weren't wearing it so much as piloting it.

What humans refer to as "mechs" are considered by yinrih to be two different classes of machine. A smaller class of externally piloted micro mechs are chiefly used in medicine, and can range from cell- to pill-sized. True mechs are piloted internally. There's a smooth size gradient going from powered armor to "mini mechs" that are too large to be considered mere armor but small enough to negotiate some indoor spaces. Mechs in the usual sense can be quite large, though not quite skyscraper-sized, mostly because yinrih are not bipedal and thus mechs are longer than they are tall.

They can, however, climb skyscrapers. Yinrih are arboreal, so their mechs are adept climbers too. They achieve this through force projector plates located on the palms and digits of the mech's paws. Force projectors generate a normal force when a voltage is applied across them. This force can be directed outward or inward, either sticking the plate to whatever it's touching or reducing the pressure on the surface the mech is standing on, preventing the mech from damaging the ground underfoot.

Mechs can be piloted solo, but usually have a crew of two.

Mechs are heavily associated with the Knights of the Sun, a Claravian order of warrior monks. These monks have many of the same cultural associations as European knights, with mechs replacing horses. The knight pilots the mech while a squire acts as an engineer and sometimes mans secondary weapons.

Internally piloted mechs don't see much use outside of combat, though they do have mech combat sports. Micro mechs on the other hand are ridiculously versatile. The Commonthroat word for micro mech literally means "avatar" or "representative", and you can infer from this that they're used in places where manual (and caudal) dexterity is required but that may be too dangerous to do in person.

The mechs used by the Knights are often named and treated as more than mere tools, but it's not quite at the same level as a super robot anime.

I haven't decided if there are transforming mechs yet, though there may be flight-capable mechs used on the floating cities of the gas giant Welkinstead.

Here's the finished version of the drawing I posted earlier. You gotta have caution stripes, it's the law. There's also now a bank of tail-actuated analog controls located at the base of the seat. That whole platform is actually the inside of a hatch located on the mech's belly.

I've been using the same Raspberry Pi 4 to host HA for years. It's worked well enough, but I worry about the stability of the SD card. I'm no stranger to cards that fail suddenly. Had one fail on another Pi just yesterday.

The various HA hardware offerings (Green/Yellow) use more stable flash storage. Can I swap out one hub for another? If so, how difficult is it? What would I be gaining or giving up by going with HA's offering? I know the Yellow has a built-in zigbee radio and PoE, but you need to buy a Pi compute module. There are also fewer USB ports on both the yellow and the green compared to the pi.

I know I could use any computer to host HA, and thus gain arbitrarily performant storage/memory/other stuff. Is there any advantage to, say, having more storage? What exactly is HA storing besides the history of entity states?

Here's a typical orbital colony in the Spacer Confederacy (SC). The main axis ring is made of sections that can expand and contract to fit around whatever rock they're currently mining.

Yinrih do not use artificial gravity. As arboreal quadrupeds they're uniquely suited to living in microgravity, having four prehensile paws and a prehensile tail.

It should have various and sundry greebles covering the main axis ring. I'll likely be replacing this sketch with improvements over time. I like to whip up a "minimum viable product" first and gradually edit as I see what can be improved.

First, I have a Kwikset Homeconnect 620 deadbolt. It locks and unlocks fine. I can add codes via the keypad itself but the manual recommends using the smart home hub the lock is paired with, which is HA of course.

I don't see a way to do this in the Z-Wave JS UI.

Second question: I'm looking for a DLNA speaker to use for TTS announcements. I really wish I could just pair a bluetooth speaker with the raspberry pi that HA is running on, but that seems to be difficult to impossible, which is surprising. Is there an integrated (as in not a puck with a 3.5 mm jack) DLNA speaker that y'all would recommend?

Are any of you aware of any of the following. I don't think I've ever seen these but they seem like no-brainers to me:

• A zigbee/z-wave/matter over thread E-ink display for arbitrary visual or text output. E-Ink sips power, which would be perfect for these low power protocols.

• Status lights, also running on the above protocols. By this I mean RGB LED arrays that I can program to display different colors to indicate different statuses of things around the home. Like red for bathroom occupied and green for bathroom free, etc. Yes I could get light bulbs to do this but I don't want to use the same thing for both status and regular illumination. This nightlight comes tantalizingly close. Maybe I'm thinking too hard about this? I guess I could just use LED strips, but I'll leave this here in case anyone has any ideas.

UPDATE:

Regarding the granting and revoking of user codes for the lock, I still can't find anything in the Z-Wave UI, but there's an action that can be triggered from developer tools which in tern can by scripted.

A yinrih womb nest, a highly derived egg-sac with its own simple heart and circulatory system. A central bus artery feeds oxygenated blood to the kits, and returning veins pass through a semi-permeable dermal layer to allow for gas exchange. The arrangement of kits in the womb nest is what gives womb ships their name, as suspension capsules are arranged in a similar manner.

In early yinrih history, as well as among the yinrih's nonsapient congeners, the tree dwellers, womb nests are placed in a dry place that can be easily defended from predation by oviraptors and infanticide from rival conspecifics. In modern times, however, a womb nest incubator is used.

A womb nest incubator consists of an inner capsule into which the male and female eggs are placed. The capsule is transparent to allow visual inspection of the nest's exterior. The capsule sits atop a suspension system to cushion the womb nest against sudden movements. The capsule and suspension are encased in a ruggedized outer chassis that also contains a number of other components.

Chief among these is a redundant power supply, accepting both external power and a backup power source, likely a star lantern. There is a two-step air filtration system. The first step processes air going from the environment to the chassis interior, and the second step filters this air in turn before venting it into the inner capsule. Waste gases exchanged by the nest's vascularized dermis are expelled into the chassis and subject to monitoring by the incubator. Medicine and vaccines are typically delivered via aerosol through the ventilation system.

When the dermis is fully developed, a cannula is connected from the nest's interior cavity to a port on the inner capsule. This allows exploratory inspection and prenatal surgery by a healer piloting a micro mech. There is traditionally one such inspection shortly before the kits are yeaned, and it is here where in many cultures kits receive their names. At this point their coats are developed, and they are near or at their birth weight. Names are often given based on their behavior in utero during this inspection. Some may be more alert than others, responding to the pill-sized mote of light outside their amniotic sac by turning their head or reaching out with a paw[^1]. Kits that respond this way are traditionally thought to be destined for holiness.

In addition to the expected systems monitoring the vital signs of the developing kits and the womb nest itself, there are environmental sensors to detect ambient temperature and air pressure. If the ambient pressure drops suddenly, for example due to a hull breach on an orbital colony, the exterior ventilation will be sealed and the air supplied to the inner capsule will divert to an on-board emergency supply.

The outer chassis is famously sturdy. It is shielded against radiation and hard vacuum (again to accommodate spacers) and can withstand the crushing pressures of the deep ocean (to accommodate Sweetwater's benthic cities.) It can even withstand small arms fire.

The reason why incubators are built to withstand everything short of quasiluminal munitions has to do with paternal instinct. The incubator is usually kept in the home and monitored remotely by a healer. During the kits' gestation, the sires are compelled by instinct to protect their nest, to the point of forgetting to eat. Their only waking thought is "THESE ARE THE ONLY CHILDREN I WILL EVER HAVE; I MUST PROTECT MY BABIES!"

Sires will respond aggressively to other males approaching their nest, which is one of the reasons why the medical profession is dominated by women. Women who are not part of the childermoot can examine the nest without getting eviscerated at the claws of up to six overprotective fathers. This aggression is at its height when a sire is in close proximity to his nest, but he will remain more or less irascible throughout his kits' gestation, to the point that paternity leave is legally mandated in most jurisdictions.

Since yinrih only have one litter in their lifetime, incubators are rarely purchased outright. Small communities such as a lighthouse or other house of worship may have incubators that they loan to expecting childermoots, or they may be rented or loaned by a healthcare organization, private company, or government entity.

The inner capsule is discarded after use, and the chassis is cleaned and inspected between uses.

After yeaning, the empty womb nest may be disposed of, or the stem cells or blood within may be harvested in case of future need by one or more of the pups. In certain atavist communities the nest is eaten by the childermoot or just the sires (who haven't been eating properly the last five months), mimicking a behavior seen in tree dwellers.

After the kits are yeaned the incubator is returned.

Gestation lasts about 144 days from the time the eggs are gathered together. Yeaning is the proper term for when kits emerge from the womb nest. Humans often call it "hatching", and some yinrih go along with it when synthesizing English. Yeaning is initiated when the womb-nest’s heart stops pumping. This isn't immediately sensed by the kits as their own hearts pick up some of the slack, but the increased load on their hearts tells them it's time to go. This doesn't happen to all the kits simultaneously. The largest or most active kit is usually the initiator. Using their claws they pierce their amniotic sac and then the outer dermis of the womb-nest itself. If they weren't moved to act by the heart stopping, the massive increase in light pouring in through the rent in the dermis made by the first little trailblazer is usually enough stimulation to get the others stirring.

Not all litters have an obvious runt, but most large ones will. The runt is often the last to emerge, hence why the Commonthroat word for runt literally means "little last one". They frequently need a bit of help from one of their dads. Whether and to what extent this help is given is subject to much debate in the medical community and superstitions and traditions abound. On one end of the spectrum, some say that a sire should completely remove the runt from his or her amniotic sac manually. On the other end, some say that fighting their own way out helps build the runt's weak musculature, stimulates their less robust heart and lungs to work harder, or it just builds character. Many split the difference and pierce the amniotic sac and let the kit do the rest. Which sire gets to do this is also subject to cultural particulars. Some say the youngest sire should do it, others the oldest, still others say that if one of the sires was himself a runt he should do it.

Among Sweetwater's surface dwellers, it's a common superstition that the runt (or any kit that dawdles in their amniotic sac and needs to be coaxed out) has an affinity for water and will make a good sailor. Around Moonlitter, this same phenomenon is interpreted as the kit being destined for interstellar mission work.

Smaller yinrih, often runts, are prized for their ability to negotiate tight passages. This is most relevant to the Farspeakers and their secular inheritors.

Meanwhile, the first kit to emerge has their own cultural associations. Some say they have a strong desire to witness Creation and are destined to become research monks. If they are female, it is said by some that their desire to bask in the light shows they will one day become a hearthkeeper. If male, their vigor and strength will push them to a career in law enforcement or the military, or in more pious enclaves, to the Knights of the Sun.

The sires are traditionally the first to handle the kits, the culmination of months of diligence and protection. After toweling them off, they'll get passed around from dad to dad, getting a quick nuzzle and sniff before being handed off to the moms to be nursed for the first time. First Nursing is also steeped in tradition. The sires usually eat a huge meal and then go into torpor, both of which were in short supply during the kits' gestation.

The dams get to bond with their kits as they nurse for the first time. When nursing, the dam will lie on her back with one or two kits resting on her belly. She will cup the kit's head in her forepaw, and the kit will start licking her lactation patch. Saliva stimulates lactation. This can be the dam's or the kit's. If the kit proves particularly fussy the dam will initiate lactation by licking her paw herself. The scent of the milk is usually enough to get the kit to start licking.

As mentioned several times before, adult yinrih don't tolerate physical contact, but kits and younger pups often receive affection from their sires and dams. During nursing a dam will often stroke the kit's head and back with her thumb. This aids digestion. Just like humans, kits will sometimes spit up.

The image of a dam cradling a nursing kit's head in her paw is the quintessential symbol of motherhood cross-culturally, and has given rise to the mild oath "By the palms that nursed me!" or just "palms!"

[^1]: This is a tentative retcon, as I previously said the kits are born blind.