u/3WolfTShirt

I think we all know that Alexa is always listening but something happened over the weekend that I didn't like at all.

I have a few echo's at home and my 85-year old mother has a couple at her home. We do not share accounts. She has hers, I have mine, there is no integration.

I went to her house to visit since my brother was coming into town and I had 3D printed something and brought it with me. I told my brother about 3D printing it.

Next time I walked by her echo show, there's an ad for a 3D printer on the screen. This echo is a few feet away from the conversation I had. There's no way it's a coincidence. I know Alexa is always passively listening - that's how she knows when you call her name. But it's seriously bugging me that it's taking that passive conversation and turning it into an ad.

I've looked through my own Alexa app settings, specifically under Privacy but I don't see anything about this behavior.

Does anyone know if there's such a setting to ignore everything that doesn't follow the word "Alexa?"

I've resolved this issue but wanted to pass it along in case anyone else runs across something similar.

I've had AVI files (yes, AVI) of a particular TV show for ages. The show was from the early 1960's and in black and white. The AVI files are in 480p. They play fine in Plex on every client I have but I've been doing a watch of the full series lately so I decided its time to upgrade the picture a bit.

I kept the avi files in and added 1080p mkv versions to my library but for some reason Plex wouldn't play them unless I turned subtitles off. With subtitles on, I just get the buffering spinner (I'm sure it has a name) but it never shows a percentage - it just sits there until it eventually times out (or crashes my Plex server as it did one time).

I had no problems playing the videos in VLC on my laptop nor with Jellyfin.

I know it was selecting the 1080p version because the resolution showed on the screen prior to hitting Play. I also went to Play Version and manually selected 1080p and still had the issue.

After some fiddling and googling and downloading logs, something caught my eye:

Aug 14, 2026 10:18:19.401 [5956] DEBUG - [Req#844a8/Transcode] MDE: E17 - <episode name>: no direct play video profile exists for http/avi/mpeg4

"avi", you say?

I don't know if that message is really referring to an avi file but it got me wondering.

I moved the AVI versions out of my library directory. After the media files were scanned again, I no longer had any problems playing these mkv files in Plex.

When Plex automatically selects the best version for my client, I would assume the non-selected version would be completely ignored but that doesn't seem to be the case - or maybe it has something to do with metadata previously gathered.

Apologies in advance for the long post. My wife also tells me I talk too much but I don't want to leave out any relevant info.

This is a weird issue I've been having for a while. This all started after I had a BMW-specialist independent shop replace the thermostat and water pump. I had bought the parts to preemptively replace them. Far as I know the old ones were working fine but I wanted to get ahead of an unexpected failure. (Before anyone asks, I did take it back to that shop. They had it for months and never looked at it so I picked it back up and I don't really trust their work anyway).

Since that replacement, I've had white smoke coming out of the exhaust occasionally. So I started thinking about why it would only be some times and not all the time. The thermostat opens occasionally so I've used a BlueDriver bluetooth ODBII dongle to monitor coolant temps while I drive.

Sure enough - when I see that smoke behind me, I look at the temp and it's nearly always 221ºF (105ºC). Then the smoke goes away I see the temp dropping. Next time the smoke comes out, the temp is 221ºF. I'm past the point of thinking it could just be a coincidence.

But I'm struggling to reason through why its happening.

I've been reading through BMW's N55 guide: https://ia600902.us.archive.org/26/items/BMWTechnicalTrainingDocuments/ST916%20N55%20Engine/N55_Engine_web.pdf

Particularly page 61-65 (Exhaust Manifold - Turbo), and 75-81 (Cooling System).

A guy pulled up to me in traffic the other day and tells me it looks like my turbo seals are blown. I have no reason to doubt it except that a youtube search of it shows the symptoms are constant smoke out of the exhaust, not just when the thermostat is open.

Anyone have any ideas?

I pre-ordered it about a month ago from CultTVMan and waiting for it but it appears to be in stock at Auto World Store. I realize that Auto World Store and Round2 are closely connected (if not the same company) so it would make sense that they get first dibs on new releases.

I have no problem waiting for it from CultTVMan - Steve has always done right by me. And I'm in no hurry since I have a number of kits in the stash ahead of it. But the way their pre-orders are set up, I have to keep checking my email to make sure I don't miss one from him to complete payment for the order. First world problems, I know...

Just seems a little odd with this particular kit release. Typically when I've pre-ordered from him, he gets the first batch along with all the other shops. Maybe Round2 is doing more of a staggered release with this one and not one big drop like in the past?

When I was a kid and push button phones started replacing rotary phones, one of our neighbors had this book (or some version of it).

https://www.amazon.com/Pushbutton-Telephone-Songbook-Vol/dp/0843102586

It would tell you what buttons to press to play certain song like Mary had a little lamb, etc.

I would imagine you couldn't get very far before a recording would say the number is incorrect - and hopefully none of them started with a 1 so you didn't accidentally make a long distance call. 😄

Yesterday I was listening in the car when Howard said Sour Shoes was on the line. I thought, "Finally, something good! I've missed that guy."

But rather than let Sour be Sour, Howard would barely let him get a sentence out. He started out with an Imus impression then Howard would say, "Hey is Mad Dog there?"

He asked Mad Dog a question about the Knicks then in no time would say "Hey is Richard Simmons there?" Sour would switch to that impression, and a few seconds later Howard would ask for George Takei, and so on.

One of my gripes about Shuli was he could do a great Tan Mom impression but he always had the same content ("Driver!") to go along with it and it got old real fast.

Now Howard is turning Sour Shoes into Shuli - great impressions but he wouldn't even give him a chance to deliver the content. I don't know what has happened to Howard's sensibilities with this stuff. Impressions alone aren't funny without funny content to go along with it.

Hey guys - quick question.

Edit/Update: I'm leaving my original post/question below as-is, but in a moment of clarity, I realized what the directions were probably saying was that 99:99 wasn't key:variable but was <crowdsec_value>:<crowdsec-dashboard value>.
I had gotten it working earlier by manually changing permissions with chmod on the crowdsec.db file but after a restart of my containers a few days later the permissions returned to what it was before and dashboard was no longer able to read crowdsec.db.
Resolution:
In the crowdsec container I set key:variable to UID:99, GID:98.
The crowdsec-dashboard container has MUID:99, MGID:98 so it looks like these variables map between the containers like:
crowdsec UID = crowdsec-dashboard MUID, value is 99 for both.
crowdsec GID = crowdsec-dashboard MGID, value is 98 for both.

Once I updated crowdsec with UID:99, GID:98, crowdsec-dashboard can now read crowdsec.db again.

Original Post where my understanding of the directions wasn't correct:
I'm new to crowdsec and just got it up and running on Unraid. Now I'm following up with the metabase crowdsec-dashboard container install on Unraid.

Under "Additional Requirements" it states:

>Add the following to your Crowdsec container as enviroment variables to give the dashboard appropriate permisions to read data:
UID: 99:99
GID: 98:98

Is that format in <variable name>: <key>:<value> ?

So I would go back to the crowdsec config and add this variable as shown in my screenshot and repeat for GID: 98:98, right? It just seemed a bit strange adding a numeric key so just wanted to double-check.

https://preview.redd.it/wdip584zlxzg1.png?width=532&format=png&auto=webp&s=6aa2e630087a25919e20b7563189d27ef64c5eb4

Update/Edit: Thanks for all the input, guys. In the meantime I have just about completed the struts - and sway bar links since I'm there and they're cheap. It sounds like the DCF891 would be the best to start out with and go up from there if necessary.

I'm getting up there in age and I'm the middle of replacing struts on my SUV. Every nut and bolt has been a struggle. I think the last shop to do the tires must've used an impact wrench and I've had a hard time getting the lug nuts off. Eventually I had to use a hydraulic jack to push my breaker bar up for all of them. And that's just to get the tire off so I can start replacing the struts.

I started to complain here about how many joints in my body hurt afterwards but I'll just get to the point.

I don't do this work often but it's caused me to start looking at impact wrenches. I have a good shop compressor so an air tool would be fine. I'm on the DeWalt 20v and flexvolt platform so that would probably be a better option since it's more portable than dragging an air hose out.

Are you guys happy with DeWalt impact wrenches for this kind of work?

I'm tired, boss.