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via Ib Aage Toft-Iversen (i47i) (@i47i@social.i47i.cc): Following up on Denver: Finland is the classic proof that homelessness can be solved.

A University of Melbourne commentary contrasts Japan’s approach of simply building a lot of housing quickly with Finland’s Housing First policy, which grants permanent housing without preconditions like sobriety or employment. Finland’s rough-sleeping numbers have dropped dramatically since 2008, and Japan’s official street count fell from 25,000 in 2003 to under 2,500 today — though the piece is careful to note the two countries measure very different things. A useful reminder that homelessness is largely a housing supply and policy problem, not an intractable one.

via Tim Bray 🇨🇦 (@timbray@cosocial.ca): I listen to music mostly on Qobuz and have plugged it on here and the blog several times, for example https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2025/06/22/Qobuz-and-Others#p-1

Tim Bray makes the case for Qobuz as a streaming service built by people who actually love music — better artist payouts, album-oriented curation, and classical music treated as a first-class citizen. The real revelation is Qobuz Connect, which lets the phone app control playback on a cheap Mac Mini wired into a home audio system. His aside is the best part: when was the last time an app added a feature that was genuinely delightful and didn’t feel like it was strip-mining your life for profit?

A Changelog & Friends episode on self-hosted media servers — Plex, Jellyfin, Emby and the rest — and why keeping your own library still beats renting from streaming services. A good listen if you’re thinking about reclaiming your media from the cloud.

via Ethan Sholly (@shollyethan@fosstodon.org): Today I’m launching a project I’ve been working on for several months - a browsable directory of self-hosted software:

Ethan Sholly of the This Week in Self-Hosted newsletter has published his entire database of self-hosted software projects as a browsable directory. You can filter by tags and by the commercial services they replace, and sort by repo stars, recent development activity, or name — with the whole thing refreshed daily from the database he maintains for the newsletter.

via Nic Wise (@fastchicken@mastodon.nz): @timbray@cosocial.ca Finally found time to write up how I use Plex + Plexamp. Thanks for asking (the world) and prompting me to actually write the words

A practical guide to self-hosting your music library with Plex and PlexAmp as an alternative to Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services. Resonates with anyone who has accumulated a large MP3 collection over the years and wants to maintain control over music they’ve actually paid for.

Terry White chronicles replacing his aging whole-house Bose SoundTouch setup with Sonos, after years of watching a discontinued product line slowly rot — half-baked AirPlay 2 support, speakers dropping offline, and no hope of fixes. A good reminder that with connected hardware, you’re buying the vendor’s software commitment as much as the speakers themselves.

via TidBITS (@TidBITS@mastodon.social): How to Turn Off Smart TV “Automatic Content Recognition”

Smart TVs use automatic content recognition (ACR) to screenshot everything you watch twice per second, sending data back for targeted advertising — regardless of whether content comes from cable, streaming, or a game console. The Markup provides instructions for turning ACR off on Roku, Samsung, and LG TVs, though it takes between 10 and 37 clicks depending on the platform.

via Ars Technica: Air purifiers aren’t enough to clean your home from wildfire smoke

I’m considering adding a couple of ductless mini splits to my home but was wondering if others have been happy with theirs or had any advice for me. Also, any suggestions who could install? Thank you!

via North Kitsap Community on Facebook:

I am looking for a good window washing company that will actually call you back.

via Jerry Bell​: PSA: for about $50, you can buy a Wi-Fi water sensor (also senses temp and humidity) from Moen. I put them under my sinks and near my water heater, washing machine, and furnace/AC.

via Stephen Shankland: Happy summer solstice, northern hemispherians. Here is a piece about startup Lunar Energy and its freshly unveiled modular home battery, a 10-30kWh model that captures midday rooftop solar energy so you can spare the grid and make a buck in the evening.

via Mark Gurman: Sonos is revamping its line of home speakers, aiming to go after that market more aggressively at a time when rivals like Google and Amazon are rolling out fewer new products.