TL;DR: Our 15-year-old solar inverter died this week, which kicked off a lot of thinking about technology longevity and why IoT devices don't have 15-20 year plans. Also: anxious cat parenting with smart litter boxes, Miss Biscuits winning over Cosmo, buying a nostalgic boombox off eBay, bouncing off and back into Xenoblade Chronicles 3, contemplating tea as a booze replacement, and way too many bookmarks about AI coding tools.

Cat Updates

Miss Biscuits continues to settle in. I think she's really won over Cosmo:

She also discovered a new perch in the kitchen cabinet:

So far the collection of lil animal figures on the counter has gone unnoticed by the cats, but I can only imagine that one or more of them will be carried off soon.

Also, this is kinda dumb but fun: campaign poster generator.

Internet of Cat Pee

Speaking of IoT frustrations: we bought an IoT litter box scale because we're anxious cat caretakers facing possible kidney issues. Ideally, this thing tracks weight and urination frequency, which can be leading signs of trouble.

Turns out the scale only works with an app installed on my phone.

The thing is, they have enough infrastructure to occasionally send me an email report. So I know they have the data online and could give us a web portal that both my wife and I could view. They probably could even offer an API that I could (ab)use to pipe it into Home Assistant. But we get none of that and this annoys me. (Of course, what I'd do with cat data in Home Assistant, I can't say. Maybe flash some red-alert lights at poop-time?)

It's also slightly annoying because we have three (3) litter boxen and only one (1) "smart" scale—we wanted to see if it would be useful before getting the other two. So we only have 1/3 of the data that we really need anyway.

Tech Longevity

The solar inverter in our house decided this week was a good time to quit. It's a Fronius IG Plus 3.0-1 Uni that's been chugging along for 15 years, which I guess is a decent run? Except now it's showing an error code and I can see through a plastic window that it has an XBee radio module with which I could maybe do... something? The manual and serial number are still around, but the thing's been discontinued long ago.

I know enough about electricity and solar to know I don't know enough to be going at this with a screwdriver myself. So we've been calling around for solar companies who might help—the original installers are long gone. Worried it'll cost as much as a brand new install to fix, though it could also just need a new fuse? Both could be true. Ugh.

This whole situation is why my eyes roll back so hard the optic nerves detach every time I hear about IoT and smart home stuff. I don't really want to deal with anything that doesn't have a 15-20 year plan. I've had folks tell me "oh 15-20 years is really long for tech products!" and I'm like "I've lived in houses over 100 years old with 50-year-old technology still in decent shape - 15 years is a joke."

(Just did the math and the last house we owned was over 175 years old. And in great shape. So, like, that's a thing.)

Nostalgia Acquisition

I found on eBay the exact model of Magnavox Turbo Bass boombox that I used to have in my bedroom growing up, for a reasonable price and free shipping. Went ahead and bought it—here's hoping it gets here in good shape. Assuming it does, it's going in the basement and getting hooked up to a SNES and a giant CRT TV.

Check out those advanced technology built-in surround sound speakers! It might even get hooked up to a Sony PS1 with a DDR pad. I almost don't even care if the cassette decks work, but it would be neat to play some tapes I recorded off an NES back in the day with this same boombox.

I don't really collect things so much as I randomly accumulate nostalgic items occasionally.

ADHD Gaming

Unexpectedly, I found myself suddenly sucked into playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I'm really digging it, but I can't seem to remember what chain of thought prompted this? I've never played any other Xenoblade Chronicles game or anything else in the Xeno cinematic universe. I got the game a few years ago as a gift and bounced off it. Then last week I saw it and tried it again and somehow my brain went "hell yeah, this is the stuff."

Like, I really wish my brain had, uh, interpretability?

Breaking Update: Ope, the game just introduced a few more systems and my brain is suddenly like "maybe we don't have room in our life for a JRPG right now." 😅

I also started playing Dispatch—dang I love the writing in this thing so far.

Also this song blew the heck out of my headphones at 11:30pm.

Ritual Over Beverage

There's a Korean place near us where we got bibimbap a couple weeks ago. They served us a pot of barley and corn tea that was super tasty! Not sure if that's what prompted it, but the girl and I have pondered whether we're drinking too much booze, especially considering... (waves at everything).

But sitting down almost every night to chat over drinks seems to be a key part of us hashing things out favorably over the years. So we're thinking about splurging on a nice tea set with a tray & cups & some goofy tea pets to make it a whole thing. Then, rather than mixing drinks for each other, we're brewing drinks and still doing the whole thing.

Seems like it might be cozy. I do kind of expect that we're going to fill the house with tea pets, though.

Creative Writing and Journal Games

I bought & printed out this solo journaling game Last Tea Shop. Ends up being a neat little zine-style game book. Really looking forward to carving out some writing time to play through this as writing prompts.

Haven't quite made the habit consistent yet, but been trying to gouge out at least one (1) daylight hour on Tuesdays & Thursdays for creative writing. Seems like work and life in general conspires against it but I'm really trying to keep gently pushing myself back into it.

I kept trying to make writing happen at night, after work. But the brain spoons are just not there. I still want to make it happen, though, so I have to pry open the space and time wherein the brain still has spoons.

Miscellanea