According To Ali

"So, you have hacked it" -- Few days ago one of the guys at work passed me this comment on a random discussion about something I built. I paused for a moment and pondered: Do I reply defending how that's not a hack. OR Do I just not bother I picked the second option for 2 reasons: It was late. It probably isn't worth defending the "hack vs" topic as the comment passed was out of context. So I chose the next best action and replied "Yep, sure did and it is working great.". I felt like Batman in the moment. In this post I will rant about the knowledge gap around hacking and then describe about one of the components of my home automation project (really, this is the main reason for this post) and use that as an example how hacking is cool and does not always mean bad. But first lets align on my definition of hacking: People use this term in good and bad, both ways. For example: "He/she did a hack job" -- Yeah, that probably...

If you have a backyard just for the sake of having one or it came with the house and you hate watering your garden or lawn/backyard then you have come to the right place. I genuinely believe that it is a waste of my valuable time. I would rather watch bachelorette on TV than go outside, turn on tap, hold garden hose in hand to water. Too much work!! Luckily, we have things like sprinkler system, soaker etc which makes things a bit easy. But you still have to get off that comfy couch and turn on tap (then turn off if there's no tap timer in place). ** Skip to the youtube video part if reading is not your thing   When I first moved into my house at first it was exciting to get a backyard (decent size), but soon that turned on annoyance when it came down maintaining it, specially the watering part. I laid bunch sprinklers and soaker through out the yard and bought tap timer but I still needed to routinely turn on the tap timer. Eventually few days ago I had enough of this rub...