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I’m a home lab tinkerer. I enjoy getting my house to do things that make my life easier. My current project involves using Home Assistant and my new home network to monitor my house. I don’t have to pay alarm company fees, camera fees, or any other rent to a company for things I already own. That’s why this story hit a nerve with me.

Imagine you just spent $400 on a smart garage door opener. You paid Chamberlain another $30 for a myQ hub to make it “smart.” Then in November 2023, Chamberlain blocked every third-party app from talking to your own garage door. Home Assistant. Apple Home. Google Home. SmartThings. IFTTT. All dead overnight.

Chamberlain called it “unauthorized usage” and said they cut off outside apps from accessing their door openers to improve the experience for their 10 million users. Home Assistant removed the myQ integration weeks later. The odd part? Amazon Key in-garage delivery still works because they charge $1.99 per order and they pay Chamberlain fees for access.

You now own a $430 garage door opener that only talks to one app, owned by one company, and they control who can and can’t interact with it. You are renting access to your own garage.

Paul Wieland, a former IT guy reverse-engineered Chamberlain’s Security protocol and built a device that speaks to it. He named it Rage Against the Garage Door Opener (ratgdo). He hoped to sell 100 units. Instead, he sold tens of thousands of them.

I’ve been predicting for years that the whole pitch of “you will own nothing and like it” that’s been going on, where people have to pay microfees for everything, would spawn a new industry of people who will sell hacks to get around this bullshit. It warms my heart to see that happening.

The disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I don’t think that I ever will. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested. In this case, I don’t own and have no experience with ratgdo. I have no idea how well it works or if it works. As a home lab tinkerer, I am just happy to see people working to find better alternatives to renting your garage door opener.

It’s an election year, and like clockwork, the left is beginning to get their violence on. So I will begin updating my warnings as events unfold. The best way to survive violence is to not be where it occurs.

With recent events in mind, I have updated the warnings for Minnesota and Hawaii.

Keeping in mind the violations of free speech, I have upgraded the warning for Minneapolis to include the entire state of Minnesota. The entire state of Minnesota is now a Zone 3 area.

Zone three areas are where violence has has taken place with little to no attempt at mitigating response from local authorities. Additionally, police and/or prosecutors are likely to bring the full weight of the law down upon those who attempt to defend themselves from these actors, or those who speak out against them.

The story this morning about racially motivated attacks, along with this video of local Hawaiians attacking people, I am also adding the islands of Maui and Oahu to Zone 2. Even though it turned out he wasn’t a real ICE agent, this is still a violent attack on what the crowd believed was one.

Hawaiians beat up an ICE agent. pic.twitter.com/3mWCPGXzSD

— Irlandarra (@irlandarra2019) July 27, 2026

Zone 2 cites have seen recent violence, with local authorities either refusing to intervene or even actively assisting those committing violent acts. Violence may occur in these cities with little to no warning, and those who employ self defense in these cities can expect to face a hostile or antagonistic response from government authorities.

See the Zones page for more information and a complete list of zones.

A deputy sheriff in Sumter county, Florida was arrested and fired yesterday for using police tools to cyber stalk her husband’s ex-wife. Detective Almany created official electronic records that falsely represented the searches as legitimate Sheriff’s Office investigations so she could access:

• Comprehensive Case Information System (CCIS)
• Flock Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR), and
• Driver and Vehicle Information Database (DAVID) 

The maintenance of these databases, and the uncontrolled access to them that begs for misuse is a clear violation of the rights of the people. Their existence in their current form is purely a 4th Amendment issue that needs to be addressed. Having an electronic dossier on every American, their whereabouts, and a real time database of their movements is simply egregious.

Not just that, but police need more oversight and less unfettered deference. Qualified immunity needs to go, and police should be forced to obtain malpractice insurance, just like most other businesses do. Medical professionals, accountants, and even travel agents are required to carry insurance against mistakes made in the course of their jobs. I don’t see why police are any different. These databases should require a warrant for access, and any misuse should result in criminal charges, termination, and liability to the person whose rights were violated- to be paid personally from the offending cop or his insurance.

There are people here who would say posts like this reflect a bias against cops. I disagree. These posts instead reflect a lack of bias towards cops, in that I don’t think police are any more righteous than the average person and special care needs to be taken in preventing people from abusing police powers.

Look at what the Socialist wing (soon to be mainstream) of the Democrat party has to say about investing:

New York City DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo: “Landlords in New York have been making a 12% return on their investment.”

Fox News’ Martha MacCallum: “How much should they make? What’s fair for the landlord to make?”

Gustavo Gordillo: “We don’t think that anyone should have a… pic.twitter.com/qc44hkvCWT

— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) July 18, 2026

In a way he is right, but not in the way he thinks. Landlords do not have a Constitutional right to a 12% return. They have a Constitutional right to property. The lend that property out to people for a fee. They might turn a profit, or they might have a nightmare tenant who does $50,000 in damage to a $250,000 rental property. They might have a tenant who refuses to pay and needs to be evicted. COVID proved that the government could simply refuse to allow you to control that property by preventing you from evicting someone who isn’t paying.

Every time you tie money into an investment, there are costs, including the cost of those who default, repairs, taxes, insurance, fees, and more. At the end of the day, some investments are riskier than others. That risk has to be compensated for. Putting money in a CD or a government bond is generally low risk, and therefore represents the lowest return. One year t-bill rates are at 4% right now. That means if an investment is higher risk than a t-bill and isn’t paying more than that, you are better off with lower risk for the same return. Even savings accounts and CDs are at 4.1% or thereabouts.

For 2025, ETFs in the stock market returned about 19%. Rental property is actually a higher risk than is a stock market ETF like SPY (17.72%) or QQQ (20.77%) but is not as profitable, especially when you are in a socialist location like Mamdani’s NYC. That’s why I got out of the rental market earlier this year and put the profits in the market.

Compare the returns for 2026 to date:

• My portfolio: 7.26%
• S&P500: 8.94%
• NASDAQ: 8.35%
• DOW: 6.13%
• Gold and Silver Index: -20.10%

The annual return on my rental was an average of 10.66%. That isn’t very large when you consider market returns over a similar time frame. In fact, the same amount of money invested in the market would average about 10.8%. Renting is a lot of risk and work for not much better of a return.

A month and a half ago, I ordered a door from Lowes. The store subs out doors, and the door maker asked me by text what hand I wanted the door cut for. A couple of weeks later, the door arrived, and it was the wrong door. I took it back.

The door maker contacted me to ask why, and I told him I wanted a right hand door, but received a left handed one.

I had some things going on, including having to take a trip to Maine, so I waited a month to reorder the door. Again, the maker of the door contacted me. I told him that this time, I wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I sent him a picture of the fucking door I was replacing. I also said “I want the door that, when you are facing the door and it swings towards you, the hinges are on your left. I want a right handed door” Here was the picture of the door I sent them:

The door came today, and it is still the wrong cut. Here is the door I got:

I am now having to take a second trip to Lowes in order to return this door because those retards can’t cut a fucking door even when you send them a picture of the door.

A MANPAD alert was issued at LaGuardia airport last night. Listen to ATC traffic:

So, you’re flying into LaGuardia, on final…and you get a MANPAD alert? I mean, I’ve had them in the Middle East and Bosnia but…New York? WTF are we doing? pic.twitter.com/Omfei20qsN

— Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) July 22, 2026

Here is what the FAA has to say about them:

10-2-13. MANPADS ALERT

When a threat or attack from Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) is determined to be real, notify and advise aircraft as follows:

1. Do not withhold landing clearance. To the extent possible, issue information on MANPADS threats, confirmed attacks, or post-event activities in time for it to be useful to the pilot. The pilot or parent company will determine the pilot’s actions.
2. MANPADS information will be disseminated via the ATIS and/or controller‐to‐pilot transmissions.
3. Disseminate via controller‐to‐pilot transmission until the appropriate MANPADS information is broadcast via the ATIS and pilots indicate they have received the appropriate ATIS code. MANPADS information will include nature and location of threat or incident, whether reported or observed and by whom, time (if known), and when transmitting to an individual aircraft, a request for pilot’s intentions.PHRASEOLOGY-ATTENTION (aircraft identification), MANPADS ALERT. EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION. MANPADS THREAT/ATTACK/POST-EVENT ACTIVITY OBSERVED/ REPORTED BY (reporting agency) (location) AT (time, if known). (When transmitting to an individual aircraft) SAY INTENTIONS.EXAMPLE-“Attention Jet Blue Four Seventeen, MANPADS alert. Exercise extreme caution. MANPADS threat reported by TSA, LaGuardia vicinity. Say intentions.”
   “Attention all aircraft, MANPADS alert. Exercise extreme caution. MANPADS post‐event activity observed by tower south of airport at two‐one‐zero‐zero Zulu.”
4. Report MANPADS threat/attack/post–event activity via the ATIS and/or controller‐to‐pilot transmissions until notified otherwise by the Domestic Events Network (DEN) Air Traffic Security Coordinator (ATSC).REFERENCE-FAA Order JO 7110.65, Para 2-9-3, Content.
   FAA Order JO 7210.3, Para 2-1-10, Handling MANPADS Incidents.
   FAA Order JO 7610.4, Para 3-1-3, Responsibilities.

What would wizard special forces look like? How would one earn a green wizard hat? A wizard ranger tab?
Instead of mechanical ambushes, it would be magical ambushes. Belt fed squad automatic wands firing off avada kadavras full auto
This needs to be written. It would be awesome.

— Divemedic (@DMAreaOcho) July 14, 2026

This is the 64th anniversasry of Starfish Prime, the largest nuclear weapon discharged space. It was 900 miles fro Honolulu, yet the EMP effects knocked out about 300 streetlights, burglar alarms, and a telephone company microwave link. The EMP damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian Islands.[

This is the time of year that my Amazon Prime membership comes up for renewal. I’ve been buying from Amazon since 2003. That was back when Amazon only sold books. In fact, I didn’t buy anything BUT books from them until 2005. That was also the year they started offering Prime. Back then, the only benefit to Prime was free two day shipping.

Fast forward to today, and Prime gets you different benefits. The largest thing I have noticed from Amazon lately is how their shipping sucks. I place A LOT of orders with Amazon, I would say that I buy more things from Amazon than I do in brick and mortar stores. In the past 30 days, I have placed 35 orders through them. It’s been so convenient, until recently.

It seems as though something has recently changed there. At least once a week, an order gets lost or arrives late. I will frequently order things with a promised delivery, and it won’t arrive for two weeks, if it arrives at all.

I don’t know what’s going on over there.