I got a Bosch Series-8 fridge in late 2017. I checked the manual, and it mentions a wifi-dongle. Emailed Bosch support, they asked which country I was in, told them I’m in Spain… and never heard from them again. Typical corporate support. Years later, I was chatting with a friend…

WireGuard is a VPN protocol, which is about 10 times faster and more efficient than the aged OpenVPN. TorGuard is a great VPN service, one of only a handful supporting WireGuard. It allows up to 8 (12 in the PRO version) simultaneous connections, is torrent-friendly, and has servers worldwide. But…

What is Free TON? Free TON is a decentralized network dedicated to building a truly open internet — a better version of the internet, where: No one can keep you out — no censorship. No one can impersonate you — your identity belongs to you, but you can be anonymous…

I’ve got a great Sonoff TX-US (2-gang) wall-light switch. It looks good, and it’s sorta smart. But can I make it smarter? Step 1 — install Tasmota. Step 2 — use MQTT. Right? Well, it works, but only until your home automation hub/server fails, and takes your MQTT server with…

If you are a native Russian speaker, you can skip everything past the joke and record your displeasure and disagreement in the comments. Here goes: Look at the painting. Now imagine that a little Jewish boy approaches the three legendary warrior-heroes and asks the one in the middle, in a…

LG OLED — two years on I bought my LG OLED 65" model B7 in December 2017. Amazing colors, HDR makes going to the movies a thing of the past (if only there were zero-day movie-streaming services!). It’s got apps — Netflix, Amazon, Youtube, and more! Nice. I had to…

I’m a huge fan of casual hi-tech clothing. You can call me a synthetics maximalist. If I can avoid ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’ fibers, I’ll go for it — no cotton, no viscose, no wool — if possible. Starting with underwear, all the way to the very outermost layer. For years…

First impression: Wow, it rocks! Better range, better speed, better everything. Easy setup, rather flexible. But then real life kicks in. No way to set different SSID for 2.4 and 5 GHz networks?! Okay, I can understand the reasoning — but not even for power users?! Phew. Region-locking?! Come on…

It sounded like an offer from a libertarian’s dream bank: they promised to open accounts for just anybody, mail plastic cards around the world free of charge, and convert currencies using Forex rates +1% (after the fist 500 GBP)! And they did it! My friends around the world and myself…