OK, so let's get started. I got quite a bit to cover. I think you've chosen wisely by coming here this afternoon. There's a lot of cool stuff here I'd like to show you. Hopefully everything works. I'm carrying about, what, 60, 70 pounds worth of equipment to this conference. I could easily say I've got the most stuff here. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. So anyway, before we start, I'd like to recognize the people. How many open source contributors do we have here in the house? OK, a few. Basically, this project would be nothing if I didn't have anything to build all this stuff on. This project, I think I've got 40 plus gems that I use to make it happen. And I just wanted to, by a round of applause, thank all the open source contributors for spending nights and weekends helping us on a day-to-day basis. OK, so before we actually really start, I'm a software guy. I'm not an electrical engineer or anything like that. There is a possibility of a small fire that may occur from this equipment here. So I would like you to notice the exit. Already, I've got one blocked out. So you can go that way. So please note your exit pass. OK, a little bit about me. My name is Fernand Galliano. I run the rail group, the Denver Rails users group. I also contributed a couple gems out there. One of them is Zia, which is a graphic package to integrate with your Rails, Merb, or Sinatra applications. Also have the more, which allows you to track user interaction within your website, performance issues, exceptions, things like that. You can check them out there on GitHub. OK, home automation. How many people do home automation here? OK, a few hands. What kind of systems do you guys use? Just extend. Extend. Extend. OK, seems to be the popular model out there. The cool thing about Extend is you don't have to go into drywall and breakwalls and wire stuff together. It's cheap. It's very inexpensive to get into. The issue is, of course, Extend works by noticing spikes using your current wiring. And basically, when a spike is detected, a light can go on or off any kind of devices like that, which is great. I've used Extend in my past. And the problem, I would walk in at my house and have the light turn off, and everything was on. Somebody in the neighborhood used the air dryer or something, and it triggered my house to light up. So it's not very reliable. But let's talk a little bit about what is home automation? What kind of stuff can you do with home automation? So this is kind of what I would look for in a home automation system, right? Be able to control lights is great, but also I want to integrate music, and I integrate my pictures and my videos and my climate control, air conditioning, heater, and stuff like that. There's a lot of concern about security now with the economic downturn, you know, a lot of people fear about their safety at their house. Before this, I was talking to my neighbor. She got one of the security services to help her, preventing her from getting ripped off. And she's spending 90 bucks a month with an outfit not to get ripped off.  Hello. OK. Can you hear me now? All right. So there's a slide here. It's about average energy consumption in a regular size house. Of course, heating and air conditioning takes a big chunk of the kilowatts that a house consumes. How many people in their house runs a computer 24 hours? One or more computers 24 hours a day. Yeah, that's the same issue. OK, so maybe it's a gig factor or whatever, but we tend to consume quite a bit of power at our house. Just nothing too terrible here.  And it's kind of interesting to see the change in computing forms where you start seeing a lot of low power devices getting down to 20 watt for a computer, even 13 watt for a computer. So basically, vendors are trying to get into your house basically a new appliance. You can think of it as a new fridge or a dishwasher, where they want to try to get a box of small computers that will run 24 hours a day on a low power consumption. Speaking of power, we are in the energy crisis. The grid cannot possibly support the demand nowadays. You have basically the cost between, I guess, the windows 3 to 6 o'clock.  So it is a concern for each of us to try to limit the amount of energies that we spend, with the also coming in of the electric cars. Those things would be plugged into the grid. So basically, the current infrastructure won't be able to scale. There's a lot of companies, including Google, that basically try to tap into your house with, I guess they call it, the power meter. Some devices that go by your power at your house, and they'll be able to check what many kilowatts you're consuming, and if you're going over and things like that, of course, using a website. So for me, I actually wanted to look at, what is my power consumption? It's like, we don't have bank statements, just illustrating how much we're spending every month. But when it comes to power, you get one bill, you've sucked up an X amount of kilowatts, you're such and such money, but you never have a breakdown of where is that power going.  So I think what I wanted to look at is, how can I monitor my power consumption at my house? What's sucking it up? So that's kind of why also I got into this project. So when I started looking into that community, I found a few. I wanted to do an open source type system. I didn't want to go in and buy this prepackaged solution that you can get out there, but I felt too constrained. I want to use my skill as a software engineer to write code that I can use on a daily basis. So here's a few solutions that are out there. I kind of looked at each of them and tried to investigate whether it was worth spending more time. There's different protocols out there. We already talked about X10 and Insteon in a way. There's some stuff that require wiring to your house, but there's also probably most interesting is the ZigBee and Z-Wave, the last two protocols. Those are radio frequency two-way protocols. You can get status and send commands. ZigBee is probably the most industrial solution out there. Big bandwidth network. It's the same idea as Z-Wave. It's a mesh network. So devices can basically route to expand the range. The one I looked at is Z-Wave, which is kind of more based toward home automation. So there's 200-plus vendors out there, including Lutron, Levitron, the nice switches that you see out there that are getting into the Z-Wave protocol because it's low energy. The chip is very small, and it's easy for them to embed that into their devices. So the one open source system that I wanted to look at was LinuxMCE. How many people have heard about LinuxMCE? Who too? OK, good. Basically, it's always talking about mashup, technology mashup. In my opinion, LinuxMCE is like the biggest open source project out there because they encompass all those concerns that I was listed earlier, telephony and climate control and different protocols, Z-Wave, ZigBee, X10. And basically, they encompass everything into one system. The source code was actually contributed by a company out in Florida. And the bulk of it is really pretty well done because it doesn't matter really what kind of devices you are talking, whether it's an IP device or a Z-Wave device or a TV or a stereo. You can basically talk to it using a given protocol that I'm going to cover here. So before we start looking at the code, a quick thing, the gear. I've got, like I said, a lot of equipment here. This is an ASUS EE box. If you can see it, you can come afterwards and take a look and touch and feel. This is a 20-watt computer. It's an Intel Atom processor. And it's very low power, 160 gig hard drive, under $300. I mean, it's pretty accessible price-wise. Then over here, I've got this. If you guys can see the blue thing that's flashing, this is basically a Z-Wave needs to have a module that recognizes. So you need to register the devices. So when you buy a new device at your house, you can walk around with that dongle and there's a button on it. And you press it. And you register that device. And they give it an ID and so forth. And then you come back to your computer, plug it in. And now you're ready to emit and receive Z-Wave commands. Then I've got this kind of like the gig factor. You know, the Glenn this morning actually covered it. It's kind of funny. You know, like a physical device that allows me to see what's going on within the system. So I've got a little Arduino board here that basically is registered. I've got a rules engine. And when the rules fire, you will actually blink a light there on the Arduino board. Then I've got this is a regular wired IP camera, router, speaker system, things like that. And then those are box here, which is a global cache box that allows me to interact with this system, with my home, amp, TV, and so forth. This is an IR transmitter. So we basically, you know, I can register IR command and then blast my home auto-tomersetter with one of those. Of course, I don't have all the devices here, but you know, the main point here is that you can integrate different protocols within the same system. OK. So like I mentioned, I contributed a gem out there. Hopefully people are interested in it. It's on GitHub, and it's called R-House. All right, so you know, at the base of the system, the Linux MC system, there's something called the DCE router. And this is really the core where every message goes through the DCE router to route the message through the appropriate device. If you don't remember anything else about this talk, this is the important slide to recall. So here, you know, this is what a DCE message protocol will look like. So the first number is, you know, the from device idea. Let me pause for a second. I'm going ahead of myself. Linux MC, the reason why I opted for it is there was really two things. One, Ruby came bundled with it, which I thought was interesting. The other interesting part of it is they have underneath, you know, MySQL database that basically store all the devices that are available on the network. And those here are those IDs, the 28, 0, and so forth are actually device IDs within the system. So for us, you know, people, you know, Ruby and Rails type guys, you know, having a database persistent store that we can tap into and extract information or store information is pretty interesting. So from device 0 to device 28, which, you know, happens to be a light. One, basically, is the message protocol whether I want to actually send a command or an event. 184, again, you know, this is a database ID on the command table. Basically, is turn light on or actually set level on the light. And then the last two parameters are basically what level do you want to dim the light at and, you know, 50 being the value. So part of the architecture here is, you know, you got the DC router, you got your devices and you get a database, right? All of that stuff is already hooked up. This is what you get out of the box, you know, with Linux and CE. And then basically my challenge was to integrate a C++ world into a Ruby world, right? So I needed to be able to figure out a way that I wanted to use my skills as a Ruby developer to, you know, enhance the system and add technologies that I knew about. So the challenge there was, you know, basically using a socket. So the router, you know, will respond. You can open, you know, two sockets, one for command type channel to send commands, you know, to the DC router, to different devices. The second one is basically receiving events. So when a device fires, you can actually get an event from it. So I basically created something called the RAC Interceptor. And this comes, you know, with the R-house gem. It's installed, you know, as a BIN script. And you register the R-house interceptor with the Linux and CE as a device. You know, in Linux and CE everything is a device.  In this system I'm interesting in lighting event and music events and, you know, climate control events. And then basically the router, every time you get such an event, you will actually forward it to the RAC Interceptor. So this is the point of integration between the C++ world and Ruby. Then I created, you know, something else called R-house which is a web service. So basically the idea of home automation is that actually you don't have to be home to use it. So the, you know, I'll show you later, you know, I've got an iPhone app running here.   So the R-house web service basically is, you know, service available all out there and I can ping it and get status and send commands into my house system. Okay, so basically I can connect to the database as well and extract information. Then, so the interceptor, you know, I wanted to be able to blast stuff, right?   So basically, R-house application is really one of those queue consumers.  At that point, you are actually going to get events. The rabid MQ, I mean, people are familiar with rabid MQ, okay, a few. So basically it's set up, you know, with an exchange and every worker, you know, subscribe to that exchange and get events from there. So the stuff that I've done, you know, there's a noser gem that's called my R-house, which is, you know, kind of like simple applications for the R-house framework.   So at the end of the month, I actually can go back and see, you know, what my wattage was, you know, from my lighting system. Okay, and then, let's see. Then I have, you know, basically the R-house web service, which is really the point of integration, right? I mean, you don't have to use, you know, you can use any kind of technology there to tap into the system, right? So it's, you know, Rails app, you know, the R-house web service actually is Sinatra application. How many people use Sinatra here? Okay, good number, yeah. Okay, so let's, you know, get into a demo.   But also when I play some music, he actually tweets. And this morning, I got up in my hotel room and I'm checking, you know, my tweet because I was bored at some time to hear. And, you know, somebody actually replied to one of the tweets because I played one of his favorite band, this is soundtrack. So I thought that was kind of funny. Anyway, so let's jump to a demo. Usually I start that way, I'm kind of maybe too nervous. Let's try this. So here is, I've got a, you know, sensor. It's an occupancy sensor. Basically this guy is kind of a three in one type thing. You know, it tracks brightness and temperature and, you know, whether somebody's in the room or not. And there's also a battery level. So, you know, this is a wireless Z wave device. And, you know, if I trip it, something should happen. So music played, right? The light dimmed 20%. This is the soft mood when you get into your house. You know, basically, you know, here's what happened, right? So I tripped the event. He goes through the RH interceptor. He goes through the rules engine.  And, you know, there's some state there as well. But, you know, he actually figures out, OK, well, part of the resolution of this rule is to dim the light to 50% and play very white on your stereo system, right? That's pretty cool. All right, so let me switch the scenario real quick. And I'll show you. So this is the hard part of the demo, because I'm always switching between a bunch of stuff. And OK, so let me play the same thing. So this is what I was, ladies in the audience, which we are very fortunate to have. Now, so if I, oh, sorry. OK, so I'm replaying the same thing. Now, basically, I just set a state. You know, I've got a memcache instance, you know, running on that box.  Hopefully, we get a different resolution. See? Maybe not. Oh. Nope. Bury again. I always have trouble with that sense. Yeah, sometimes it's, you know, just, ah, here we go. So in honor of Stevie Ray's 20th anniversary yesterday, contribute that to Austin folks. So same deal, right, just to state change in memcache. The light went higher, so 100%. And then Stevie Ray started playing on the audio. OK, so now we're going into demo mode. So basically, you know, when I read the system, I kind of wanted to have like a rare type environment, right? So I could develop here on my Mac and don't have to be on the box. So I've got different environments set up. So here, I actually have, you know, the same thing as the script console, right, the RH console, the RHS console.  So, you know, I did mention I've got a database underneath me and I built, you know, those active record, you know, models to look at it.  Oh, oh dear. Let me do this. Can you guys see this? Basically, I just looked for a device with ID 36, which is a lamp. And basically, I can pull this device now and ask it, hopefully. So basically, this device has three commands I can send on, right, it's on, off, and set level. This is on that light over here. Similarly, I can, you know, look at device 36, which is this camera right here.  So, you know, here I can, you know, take a snapshot and move the camera left, right, and so forth. So, let's interact with those devices, right? So, let's see here. Okay, again, my cursor back. Okay, so basically, you know, part of the web service, the house web service, I got two set of commands. One is kind of like the human mode, where I actually will address devices by name. And the other one is kind of more of a machine mode where I can access things, you know, with their IDs. So, part of this is, you know, it's kind of a utility really to the web service. So, I don't have to know the detail about, you know, which port and so forth.     You know, similarly, I can do, you know, the same thing, I can actually dim it. So, here is the set level command that we saw earlier and whoops, it's going too far. Take my word for it. So, basically it's, you know, the set level command, you know, dim to 50%. Okay, so this is interacting with the Z-Wave, which actually I didn't show you, you know, basically plug into the wall, you know, you have this little, you know, dimmer thing here and this is the Z-Wave device, right? This was registered with that dongle over here and, you know, that's what it is.  Okay, so this is fine. So, this is for the light. Now, if I switch to, you know, my camera, I can actually see. All right, so I'm gonna tell the camera to do something. So, the camera was, ooh. Oh, device 36. It's an IP camera, I think. Okay, of course you can, let's see. So, that's you guys. Yay! All right, so let me shoot that command. Hopefully, something happens here. Where am I? Oh, here I am. Okay, so let me re-shoot that. Hopefully, something happens to the camera. Yeah, so, I don't know, I'll do it again because it's kind of very subtle. So, I should be moving left, I guess. Yeah, okay. So, you know, and then I can move it left as well. Okay, that's fine. Okay, and so, part of this now, if I brought my Twitter guy here. So, I've got my house here. So, you know, basically it's gonna be delayed a little bit.  Let's see if I can use these things. No. Okay, let's go back. If you have any questions, feel free to blast.  So, you know, let's look at some code.  It's kind of like Rails, you get different environments, you know, you've got a production environment, testing environment, dev environment, so forth. So, in this case, you know, I just, a lot of the YAML file and the interceptor is actually registered as a device, you know, a generic device, a virtual device with the Linux MC box. So, that executable is actually managed by Linux MC. So, when the system starts up, you know, it's gonna fire me up and I'll be like already hooked up and ready to send the events in and out.  The main thing here that's interesting is the events. So, you know, here I'm registered to listen to your camera, lighting event, security, climate, so forth. And then the different environment that I can run this thing in. I saw, like I was explaining, you know, I've done socket programming before. It's not that much fun, but it's actually funnier in Ruby.  And then, basically, you know, the register event loop that pauses that event YAML in the configuration file and just registers, you know, interest in those events. So, when the router actually gets those events, he knows that I need to get those forwarded to me. Okay, and then, basically, we have, you know, the rule system, rule B is the gem that I use, you know, out there, which is a rules engine in Ruby. And, you know, pretty easy to use, really.  So, in this case, that's a design player is actually the CD player on the Linux MCE box. And I can, you know, look at what type of event, whether it was, you know, play or stop or pause. And based on those, say, the little switch statement here that basically entailed the Arduino, you know, go ahead and blink and so forth, right. Okay, then, you know, this is part of the Sinatra application. It's very simple, right.  Any questions so far? You guys are pretty quiet. I'm worried. Must be after lunch, but he's kind of digesting the pizza or something. He's straight forward. Cool.   You know, nothing too terrible here. Okay, so, jump into another demo. This, you know, supposed to be very hands-on type stuff. Yes, sir. So, what's the, what's the other one for? So, okay, you know, basically, you know, I've got a lot of events coming in, right. Those devices, you know, fire up a lot of events. And really, instead of like tailing the log file to figure out, you know, especially I'm doing a lot of changes back and forth, I can just get a visual cue. It's kind of the same thing as the packet Glenn gave out this morning, you know, the little paper thing. It must be like modern age. Now we get actually cooler devices to do, to do that kind of stuff. So, basically, I just get a visual signal that I got the event. And, you know, the colors actually know what to look for, right. So, I know if I got a red, I got an off. If I got a green, I got an on. So, it's basically just for me to monitor this. Yeah, and plus, you know, it was kind of a geek thing too, you know, because I wanted to use an Arduino for the longest time, but I couldn't find a really good scenario to use it in. So, now I have one, right. And eventually, hopefully it'll become, you know, some kind of a piece of furniture in my house, right. I can have a glow, a glob type thing, you know, and yeah. So, that's the idea behind that. Thank you for the question. All right, so, let's do this. So, let me show you what I did. So, you know, I have this command level API that I showed, you know, in the IR vehicle console. So, now let's look at, you know, other things that I got. So, basically I built this web, you know, dashboard type thing, right.  So, I'm, you know, 50% right. My thermostat, you know, same thing at home, right. I can control my thermostat, it's a Z wave thermostat, so I can, you know, between three and six, I'm not at home. You know, what do I care about the AC being on? I can just turn it off from my office, right. Oh, speaking of this actually, you know, this is our house, but all this stuff I'm showing here, you can apply that to your office. How many people live at night with your monitor on?  Yeah, so same deal, right.  You can do it cooler with this kind of stuff, right. And you are in Ruby, right. You can integrate to a cruise control right there.   So I don't know, it's, you know, months worth of stuff here or whatever. And basically I can look at my consumption and see, you know, like, the things, this lamp is actually really in my office at home and it's a dark room. So just kind of tell you how much our is actually put in.    This, I don't have that device here, so I'm not gonna show anything.   Did it do anything? Yeah. It's brighter, you know, turn it down, right. And Arduino should kind of follow here. Same thing on the camera, you know, I can control it as well. So imagine, you know, those things are really devices at your house, right? Somebody ring the doorbell, Z-Wave, boom, you get an event, right? And it's okay, well, who is it, right? You can, you know, be anywhere and see, you know, their mug, you know, right there on your dashboard and figure out whether you should let them in or not.  Yeah, so we moved, yeah. Okay. All right, so this is one interface, right?  And then, let's look at something else now. So if I can find my cursor.  And I kind of want to keep striking of things, what things are going on.  I'm tired of finally with, you know, 15, 20 remotes, you know, through the years you kind of accumulate them, you don't even have the device anymore, but you keep the remote because either it was cool or you don't remember where it was used at. So this is the same thing, right? This is basically this application here, you know, with the, you know, an iPhone UI on top of it.  Maybe reload this. I think it's a good name, I phoned it because it doesn't really work all this time. So I'm toast. Okay, so anyway, take my word for it. Here it is right here. So I'm actually gonna go in. Actually, I could do this, right? It should be something like that. I don't know that. It's kind of like Blair Witch Project, maybe a little bit.  Can you see that? I don't know. Oh well, so I'll just show it like that. So basically if I hit off the light will go off. Yeah. Feel free to give me some encouragement here. I'm sweating back here. I have carried about 70 pounds worth of equipment. I have no, it's been two days somewhere the same underwear. Okay. But enough about me. Okay, so let's see.  You know, and here it's nothing special really.  You can play your music from your iPhone. Well, this is a little bit cooler. I can control the whole house with this thing, right? So I basically build, you know, a thing to access my music library. And Linux MC is really cool, right? You know, I've got a 500 gig, you know, hard drive at home with all my media, you know, photos and videos and music and so forth. I just plug it in. It detects the device. You're going and scan it, index everything and boom, it's available. You do nothing, right? So I don't know, what are you guys in for? Besides players? Okay, let's try that. All right, so, you know, here I've got my album. Should be able to pick that and you'll pick a song. And again, you know, play, pause and volume. So I should be able to hit play. Great. Okay, play. All right, I'm playing music. So I can pause it. Right? I think I might have hit more than once. Okay, so should be able to pause. Okay. Or not. I think I'm too nervous. I hit it probably more than once. Anyway, I got a volume here. So it's lower. Yeah, that works. All right, so this is kind of like, definitely the remote of the future, I think. Okay. I'm directly from that phone or does it control the computer? Yeah, I mean, the music is playing right here. So yeah, that's a very good question. I should clarify this a bit. So, Linux and CU come, Linux and CU actually come in different flavors, right? You have basically a core, you can set up as a core, which is like my ideal home entertainment center, right?  And then you have what's called a media center, and that device will live next to your entertainment center, right? So if you have a TV in the kitchen or whatever, you will have a machine there or in your, you know, bedroom or living room and so forth, you will have a, you know, device that basically is part of Linux MC network, but it's very, you know, it doesn't have to have a big disk and it just has to be able to boot and have a video card on it so that you can control it, you know, remotely. And then this is what I have here, which is basically called the hybrid mode. This is both a core and a media center in one box, right? So this model of S2C box is the, you know, 302 model. It's just, you know, DVI, you know, output for video. It's not really that great. The newer versions have, you know, HDMI so you can, you know, plug in directly into your TV and, you know, Linux MC, I really recommend going to the site and check out the videos. Some of the people out there are really doing some crazy stuff with this thing, right? They have the Jara remote, right? So you'd be like watching a movie. You move the remote that way, you know, the movie goes fast forward and then back. It's really cool, and all the menu system is integrated within your TV set, right?  So, you know, do check it out, it's really cool. Okay, so that's ends this demo. Okay. All right, so we're almost done. So basically, references, so Linux MC site, a lot of good information there.  Basically, Linux MC is based on Ubuntu or Ubuntu, Debian, you know, Linux, and, you know, sits right on top of it. The installation is, you know, for this box, really, I kind of sweated a little bit to install it because the Intel video is not that well supported. You know, if you have, you know, an iron processor or an NVIDIA cord, and you don't have to use one of those, right? If you have something in your basement, you know, that you haven't used, no P5 or whatever, you can drag it out and install it on there. Then there's the Z-Wave Alliance for a read more about the Z-Wave protocol. And Mikasa Verde is a site where you have like different, you know, devices and dimmers and light switches and things like that. My links, unfortunately, I don't blog as often as I should.  I'll try to do a little more. Basically, I set up a Google group, Ahouse Gem, if you want to join, and I'd love to see what you guys can come up with if you're interested in getting to that project. Again, the Git repo for Ahouse and my Ahouse gems are out there. My email address and my Twitter handle. You know, this is, you know, in my experience, when I get this working, and maybe I'm just a gig, but I thought it was really cool. You know, the fact that I can write code to control physical device is really interesting to me. You know, this is kind of the fun part.  Because you become lazy, right? Why do I need to go downstairs to turn the light off, right? And just hit that phone.  I just reach for the iPhone, boom, you know, it's off. You know, that's kind of cool. Anyway, so really and truly, you know, this project is about you guys, right? I mean, you know, I've, unfortunately, I've wrote some code for a long time, you know, probably more than I'd like to admit, but this is kind of an opportunity to use your chops for yourself, right? You can write code and use your code so you can become, you know, the customer, you become the developer, you become the architect, and you can use that code on an everyday basis. It's kind of cool of a concept, I think. So find something that passionates you and you can, you know, find a way to automate or write software for it and use it for yourself as a hobby. I think that's a great thing you can do. Okay, questions, you know, thank you so much. You guys have been great. If you have questions, please be accurate. We only have time for just a couple of questions with a red load behind here. Okay. Let's go ahead and take like three questions. Yes, sir. You mentioned you started looking at this because you wanted to measure power use. What did you use to actually measure and how much of your house could you measure? Okay, so basically, the way I integrate is, you know, of that Rabid MQ. So I've got a listener or monitor that basically, you know, goes through the event. So when I see a lighting event on or off, I actually log it somewhere in the database. So now that graph that I was showing in the bottom of the dashboard, this is the result of looking at that on the database. So now I can easily compute, you know, the usage of my power, right?  So that's the idea behind that.  Yes, sir. What did we find your slide deck here? What's that? What did we find your slide deck here? I don't know. I guess those guys probably will post it somewhere. Yeah, I think that we posted something like that first. And I really could not do that tomorrow. And I've got, you know, it's very similar. I did this presentation at RailsConf this year. So you should be able to find it on slide share, I think. So each time you dim the light, how do you know how much power it is? Yeah, so that's the thing. So basically I got the event. I know, you know, the level of dim. So now I can figure out, you know, what the wattage was for dim light, right? So does this even allow you to get the power spec of how much is it going to do? No, so that's a very good question. Actually, you would have to register. I have not done that. Basically, you would have to register, you know, what kind of device and what kind of wattage it is, right? So that is something that you would have to do to, very good question. Yeah. So you would have to use something like a killer watt kind of a thing to find out how much it doesn't use. Yes, yes, yeah.    Some hands, there were some other hands. Yes, sir. What would you say the cost of looking at something would also be? Okay, that's a very good question. So I already mentioned, so this is, you know, $300. The devices themselves, you know, there's different grade and it also depends whether you're doing low voltage lighting or just line voltage lighting, right? The dimmers are different. Typically, you know, the starting price of a Z wave dimmer, enabled dimmer is about 10 bucks more than what you would pay for a normal thing. So yeah, it's an expensive, you know, endeavor in some way, right? You want to be able to get devices that you can rip off at the end when you move out and move it to the next house.    The Z wave dongle was like $70, I think. This was, I think, 100 bucks for the IR. So the notifications that you have here, it will send a tweet. Could it call you? You can do, now you are in Ruby, right?  So we're gonna get... Okay, thank you very much, guys. You've been great. Thanks.


Will China or USA win the scramble for Zimbabwe's lithium? Lithium is commonly called white gold because of its market value and silver color. Lithium is a soft white silver like alkaline metal chemical element. White gold was found in 1817 by Swedish chemist Johan August Arfwetzen in the mineral petalite. Lithium is also found in brine deposits and as salts in mineral springs its concentration in seawater. Throughout the years mankind's development has solely depended on petroleum and its products which are commonly called black diamond. In recent years due to the global warming which has caused man to diversify his source of energy electric vehicles have come to place. The advent of this has led to the mad rush for lithium. But why lithium? Lithium is one of the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. In the latter part of the 20th century lithium became important as the anode material of lithium batteries. The high electrochemical potential of this element makes it a reliable component of high energy rechargeable batteries. With this potential lithium is highly needed in the production of electric vehicles. Global economic superpowers are in a rush to secure sources of lithium for themselves. This mad rush for lithium has led to the scramble for this precious metal. Hello there welcome as we write on please like this video and subscribe to our channel. Africa as usual is the main source of the world's raw material including lithium which is in high demand nowadays. Over the years Africa's lithium production is set to increase rapidly. From 40,000 tons this year the continent will likely produce about 490,000 tons by 2030 with a bulk of it coming from Zimbabwe as estimated by commodities trader Trafigura. With the bulk of this coming from Zimbabwe every superpower wants to be control of Zimbabwe's lithium industry. If all have not yet subscribed to our channel please do so as to become part of the Africa Reloaded Community. With the involvement of top economic powers in Zimbabwe's lithium one might call it a scramble and China seems to be winning the scramble. In early 2022 the Chinese company Zhejiang Huayu acquired controlling rights to Zimbabwe's Arcadia mine from prospect resources in Australian majority owned emerging energy minerals company. The 422 million dollars lithium deal has gotten a lot of media attention and mixed reactions from the public. Public opinion has been divided over the sale of a lithium mine in Zimbabwe to a Chinese corporation. Many people are worried that there won't be many benefits for the country or the region. According to Archie Mathabella the transaction emphasizes the necessity for more regulation of foreign investors in the nation in order to uphold contractual responsibilities and safeguard local interests. The ensuing polarization lifts the veil on broader socioeconomic and political forces at work in Zimbabwe's natural resource deals which many regard as a microcosm of the rest of Africa. Whereas some are optimistic about Zhejiang Huayu's acquisition as a sign of progress for Zimbabwe's economy and a driver of jobs and tax revenue others are more cautious. Septics limit the government's lack of foresight in securing a stake in the mine given lithium's strategic importance in the auto industry's burgeoning clean energy market. However there are five other lithium operations in the country all of which were licensed before Arcadia. So what makes Zimbabwe's latest lithium project so unique? The world is changing. Electric vehicles are approaching a tipping point in global market penetration and as a result investment in battery technology and production is rapidly increasing. China intends to produce 20% of all electric vehicles EVs by 2025. France has set a deadline of 2040 for all vehicle sales to be electric or hybrid electric. The United Kingdom has set a target of zero greenhouse gas emissions from domestic output by 2050. Lithium is critical to achieving these objectives. Industry investment in battery production and its value chain is increasing globally. Lithium whose demand has surpassed that of non-lithium batteries is one of the raw materials used to make batteries which in turn is raising demand for those resources. President Mangagwal will be attempting to bolster support from a tepid and uncooperative populace as elections are slated for 2023. Obtaining a political mandate requires not only controlling perceptions but also producing real world outcomes that have a positive impact on people's lives. Start by improving communities on a significant level in order to leverage their holdings as significant equity partners when they work with foreign investors, locals require strong land tenure rights. Otherwise they will be forced to take menial occupations. There is now very little room for movement. Nationalization of resources is also not a magic fix, as seen by the numerous potential industrial projects that are currently in limbo. Other options should be explored as well, like promoting devolution for local communities and developing localized economies free from patronage systems. China is the world's largest user of lithium and it produces little to no lithium. As a result China must try to import lithium from Africa and Zimbabwe appears to be the ideal source. China produces over two-thirds of the world's lithium batteries. USA is a major consumer of lithium as well. In order to prevent its lithium stocks from running out, the USA must work to find a source of lithium in order to keep producing electric vehicles. All of these have prompted these countries to quickly enter into collaborations with the leading producer of lithium in Africa on an economic and other basis. So with interest shown by China, America and particularly the Tesla CEO, who do you think will win the scramble for the white gold of Zimbabwe? Tell us in the comment section. Remember to like, share, and subscribe to Africa Reloaded. Please click the notification icon to get notifications of newly released videos.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel critical overlord here So this will be a spoiler-free review for it's a wonderful knife Which is coming to us directed by Tyler McIntyre and pinned by Michael Kennedy. It is starring Jane wood up Jess McLeod Joel McHale Catherine Isabel William Davis and Justin Long This film revolves around the character of Winnie Carothers who saved her town the idyllic angel falls from a psychotic killer on Christmas Eve One year previously but after wishing she had never been born She finds herself in an alternate universe in which she doesn't exist allowing the killer to roam free Now a lot of you have been dying to hear my thoughts on this film ever since I watched it a few weeks ago at this point I will say this it's a wonderful knife is camp done, right? Is it perfect? No, but this blood salt spin on a Christmas classic or Shrek forever after because it does remind me of Shrek at Times whichever one this reminds you of more this film filmed my heart or filled my heart with holiday cheer Borrowing from what worked in freaky Michael Kennedy serves up a final girl That is easy to invest in and root for immediately upon meeting her Winnie Carothers isn't enjoying life a year after saving her town from a corrupt power hungry individual her family and everyone else around her Has moved on but the trauma of last year and her personal losses from that from that event have her flabbergasted how everyone's Everyone is able to just act as if nothing happened while she's still just of course stuck in the past and still very much So it impacted by all of this She's convinced it would be better if she was never born and time spent in an alternate reality Convinces her that she is more than wrong So while the screenplay isn't the most original piece out there the familiar territory wasn't a lackluster affair overall Sure, Winnie has family I couldn't care less about like Kate Robertson scream for but quadruple it but Winnie's blossoming relationship with a character I believe named Bernie or she's like an outcast sort of who is an outcast sort of character was Mollard than enough for me to garner or more than enough to garner my interest in Winnie and her route Her arc and her connection that relationship She's having blossom with the character named Bernie Admittedly there are some things about corruption and greed that I feel weren't fully explored to the map to the best of their Ability which would have enhanced the villains of this story and added more to Winnie's frustration She has towards the elitists in her town It's there and I'm kind of on board but I just wasn't completely on board with her in that regard because of the Because of the fact that the film didn't flesh those things out well enough for me Some of the lines can be cheesy and yes you have exposition dumping But it wasn't done in the state the obvious sort of fashion Which is great because I'm not a complete idiot and I cannot stand when films treat their viewers as though you can't catch On to what is happening so job well done too. It's a wonderful knife. The kills are pretty standard not very memorable a Few were cringy to be honest specifically one with a candy cane because of the visual effects But one sequence that concluded with an axe being plunged into someone's face I think it's highlighted in the trailer actually that was easily the standout for me thanks to the choice of music That was accompanying this sequence as well There's a nod to screen to in the screenplay that was very funny Along with some other lines from Kennedy just who's just wearing his screen mark screen heart on his sleeve in the screenplay I will say that the reveal also was a little underwhelming nor Not that it didn't make sense But it just didn't feel like a betrayal worth getting up into arms about it Someone who just was one of the paper thing characters I referenced so I wasn't all that invested in their reveals or their motives Performances are wonderful Justin long continues to be a master at portraying an insufferable but intriguing person like he does in Barbarian and Jane Woodup Brings our final girl to life with enough conviction to for me to feel sympathetic towards winning situation All the performances were solid, but I'd give the advantage to those two. I just mentioned Just as I go back to the screenplay really quick I do think that the who done it aspect of it all just fell a little flat due to the characters being thin as hell and Not worth carrying who the killer was by the end of it all Despite that what really just won me over was what was being done with Winnie and the humor in the heart of it all of The screenplay that's what really ended up winning me over in the long one when it came to the screenplay for it It's a wonderful knife That's fine pacing the cinematography. I thought was decent enough. I have seen them the remarks about this looking like a car ad That while that's funny, you know, I've seen so much so many terrible films One in particular. I'm thinking of where you look like you have an unrundered gameplay as your backdrop I didn't take much issue with the cinematography in this film Thought it had solid direction overall for the most part. I would give it's a wonderful knife a Six point six point seven out of ten. I enjoyed it for what it was. I had fun with it I could see myself revisiting this every Christmas season Just as a fun slasher to enjoy around Christmas time Let me know what you guys think about this down in the comment section below if you haven't already of course Make sure you subscribe turn on post notification in this video in the description. I'll have links on my social media accounts I'm on Facebook Twitter and Instagram you can message me there, of course Let me know there's any movies and news or reviews I'm gonna cover in the future and with all that in mind guys I will see you in the next video


Imagine taking off from an airport runway flying at three to five times the speed of sound at altitudes of 20 miles or even higher.  Or maybe you took off from a runway and flew directly into orbit to work in space and then you return landing on a conventional airport runway. The National Aerospace plane will try to make both scenarios a reality. NASA and the Department of Defense have done research on hypersonic technology for many years. The NASP technology demonstrator will be a highly advanced X-plane, a new member of the elite special research aircraft that includes the X-1, which in 1947 was the first aircraft to break the speed of sound and fly supersonic. In the early 1960s the X-15 became one of the first manned hypersonic aircraft and reached speeds of Mach 7 or about 4,500 miles per hour. One of the key technological developments of the X-30 or NASP are in the propulsion area. An air-breathing hydrogen-fueled supersonic combustion ramjet engine or scramjet engine is now being developed for speeds from about Mach 7 to Mach 25. The engine uses the velocity of the vehicle to compress air as it is rammed into the intake. This compressed air is then mixed with gaseous hydrogen at this stage to generate high thrust. A development on which we will focus is materials. Here to speak on that is Matt Mellis. With the advent of the aerospace plane there's become a need for a lot of new material development. Beyond the shadow of a dot we need new materials and these new materials will most probably be composite materials, but instead of using a metal matrix-based composite we'll be using a metal matrix-based composite. Metal matrix being copper for instance. One of the big problems NASA is facing with the advent of the national aerospace plane deals with not only finding the right materials to use but in cooling them as well. We have to figure out some way of making a very strong material that's going to survive in a high temperature environment and what we're going to have to do is actively cool this material, by putting some kind of a cryogenic fluid behind it, gaseous hydrogen or liquid hydrogen which is very cold and the next is a good heat transfer medium to take heat away from the leading edge. So on one side of the material, on the inside of the wing for instance, there'll be a lot of coolant rushing through to cool the inside down and on the outside you'll have a very hot surface and that is why we need the high heat conductivity. For instance you look at fighter jets that travel Mach 1 or Mach 2 or even the Concord which goes up the Mach 2. You see that their wings are very narrow at the leading edges. The problem with that because the smaller the leading edge gets, the more difficult it is to cool and the hotter it gets because it's such a small point lying out there in the free stream that it gets very warm very quickly. The national aerospace plane is one of the projects being developed by NASA for future space use but we cannot expect it to do all of our work in space. The national aerospace plane being something that will possibly be able to supplement the shuttle fleet or maybe even replace it but obviously if you have an airplane that can take off from a runway and go to orbit with some people in it and go to the space station for instance or something like that obviously it would be capable of shuttle type operations. As far as payload goes I think moving big things like space station components or say for instance they want to go to Mars and they have to get some big boosters up there or something like that I don't see the national aerospace plane taking that kind of payload up there. The national aerospace plane is expected to yield a high payoff for the United States in the early 21st century with reduced space launch costs vastly reduced transit time on long-haul air routes major investments by private enterprise in commercial space ventures and sustained US preeminence in aeronautics with all of the social and economic benefits that accompany it.