Not addressing your main points. Just wanted to point out you can have a smart home with purely local devices. No cloud.

Keeps carpal tunnel at bay. Well, helps but doesn’t totally prevent it by itself.

Last time I tried it, it choked on anything over a million files. Is it better now?

Airvpn, then use their advanced config to create a 443 tcp tunnel out to a single server. Then use that server’s IP in your OpenVPN config file. Route all traffic including dns inside the tunnel.

Traffic will look like all other web traffic - encrypted on standard web ports. You won’t even need to do a DNS lookup to start with and airvpn uses generic rDNS so it’s not super easy to figure out from their perspective.

You’re just flatly wrong, the spec page for the humdrum mini split I pulled up first has a max outdoor max ambient operating temp of 52.78c (127f)

My point in bringing up refrigerant temps was to get you to look into it. Heat exchangers are more effective than you believe. No one is trying to convince you that these units defy the laws of physics.

You should look into variable speed compressors and the temps at which refrigerants work. You’re correct on many points but misinformed on others.

The point is to show different biases through their source’s own interpretation of facts, not to deliver unbiased news themselves.

Put another way, Ground News is kinda saying “here are some cold days, hot days, and in-between days. This is what we experience.” You’re sitting there saying “they’re liars! Have you forgotten 0 degrees kelvin and the center of the sun?!?”

We haven’t forgotten but it’s not the point. Moreover if they changed their scale to show the modern left is not really left wing at all, then they would not be representing what we’re seeing, and critically, they would not be shareable as a demonstration of bias in news. Because most people would dismiss them as propaganda without really digging in.

Well that and only boosting a little at a time. Generally you’ll see crashes and corruption long before you’ll kill a card, if you can avoid swinging for the fences.

Been using them for many years and several instances I leave permanently connected. I can’t recall a single instance of AirVPN disconnecting from their side.

Try AirVPN. They allow port forwarding and have fairly extensive configuration options.