Hey Fedi friends! It's the end of the month again which means it's time for a new mutual aid request. (This ended up being a little longer than I expected but bare with me! CashApp & PayPal links at the end! :floof_Heart:)
To try and keep this short and since many of the folks who have known me or seen me around the Fediverse know or have an idea of what the current situation is like.
I'm a minor with no source of income outside of coding which does not bring nearly enough in for me to even buy lunch most months so I have to resort to mutual aids or theft (Which got me in a lot of legal trouble, but fuck the corporates.). I need at least enough fundings to support me (Age 16, turning 17 this year) and my younger sibling (age 15).
I am a high school student living in a crappy situation with divorced parents. Where one house, the main house, I am refused basic needs such as, but not limited to, food, water, hygiene, clothing, proper medical care, etc. While the other house, my mothers, is a hoarder mess with little to no food, and when there is non expired food that has not been gotten into by animals, months, mold, maggots, etc, it is often times one of the following: Chocolate, cookies, Twinkies, hostess foods, etc. My mother hoards much more than just garbage but indeed, animals also. (With over 70 animals in the house and dogs who are not potty trained along with more animals, outside of the house).
Neither houses include proper medical care. I have a chronic skin disease that causes me severe pain and if it gets bad enough, it becomes an open wound that tunnels often times on my chest or on my legs. My parents do not supply the proper medications I need for these, and when asked or mentioned needing the medications, I get told "Get a job". (Which I am also not allowed to have.)
I'm constantly at risk of being kicked out of the house at any time without warning, a couple of months ago I was locked out of the house in regards to being trans and using my chosen name tho thankfully this was after a school play and I had a safe place at the time.
CPS does not listen. The cops do not listen. I cannot speak up about any of these issues even to trusted adults as this causes more issues at home and gets CPS involved.
Cost breakdowns for the month! Any extra fundings will be put towards getting my parrot a new urn (His last one unfortunately broke).
MEDICATIONS: $50 (4x meds for chronic disease (3 prescription + 1 one reg), anxiety/insomnia meds, pain killers)
CAT FOOD: $20
TOTAL: $500
NOT URGENT BUT STILL NEEDED: I will be doing commissions in regards to funding for this stuff, it might take a little bit but I'll do it o7
URN REPLACEMENT: $160 (I know this is expensive but it was the cheapest urn I could find that was made with a decent quality that would work better for traveling with him, as this bird means a lot to me, even in death. If you've known or seen me around within my past year and a half ish on Fedi you'd know how much my beloved Leo was worth to me<3)
(We attempted to fix the urn but it didn't work very well as it proceeded to keep breaking and at this point it's cheaper just to replace it)
LAPTOP FIX: $20
(Keyboard had an incident where one of the keys broke and need to be replaced, this was a rough estimate on the price it should cost from a friend. - The laptop doesn't have a warranty 😹 but I need this for personal use + school + studies)
Matter is coming to fix all your smarthome woes! A single IoT standard, working across multiple radio protocols, bringing together different products from many different manufacturers.
And… it works!
Mostly
These are the Meross 315 Smart Plugs. They are small(ish), cheap(ish), and easy(ish) to use.
As soon as I plugged them in, before even configuring them, my home went crazy. I got a pop-up on my phone asking if I wanted to control them with Google Home.
I wanted to add the plugs using the Meross app. Not because it is particularly good (it's basically fine) - but because of a couple of limitations in Matter. Here's a page from the plugs' manual.
At the moment, Matter doesn't support firmware updates. That's probably fair. You don't want some random app bricking your device - so it is restricted to the manufacturer's app.
Luckily, HomeAssistant came to the rescue! Because the Meross API is well documented, my local SmartHome Pi was able to get a realtime view of how much power was flowing through the plug.
The power toggle - and activity LED - is on the left side of the plug. That makes it a little awkward to press and obscures the view of the LED. I guess putting it on top would make it too easy to accidentally activate?
The energy monitoring doesn't seem to update in realtime in the app.
I renamed the plug in the Android app, but that name doesn't seem to be exposed in Matter. Nor was it picked up by HomeAssistant.
In order to connect the device to WiFi, your phone needs to be on that specific WiFi network. Because the devices only support 2.4GHz, I needed to swap SSIDs on my phone. But, on the plus side, I didn't have to manually enter any passwords.
For about £32 for a two-pack (depending on whether the algorithm favours you) these are pretty good value for money. They were easy to set up, quick to get working in other apps, and had a firmware update waiting for me.
I got some Meross plugs about 6 years ago and they've kept trucking all that time - so I'm pretty confident these will last. And, even if Meross disappears, Matter means that another app can easily control them.
Here's the plan. I'm going to plug this into my Tumble Dryer and tell HomeAssistant to monitor its energy usage and send me a message when the drying is done.
This is unacceptable. I hate #Trump as much as anyone, but his minor #child is off limits, just as we would demand for the child of one of our #politicians. We are better than Trump and his moronic #supporters, but shit like this makes us no better than them. If you find yourself seething with #rage as you type a threat or attack on a #minor—any minor—step away from the #keyboard and take a walk.
Semi-urgent | For those who don’t know a bit of a back story for you guys here; My parents are divorced and most the time i’m forced to live with my father (Also known as the “Void demon(s)”), he’s transphobic and an abusive piece of crap. Back in (early) 2021 he had taken my phone and had paid someone to hack into it (He now keeps it in his safe; no way to get it back though) all because CPS got called on him, due to those things I had lost all contacts with friends, family, important info, photos, literally everything (Including gmail accounts) and it even fucked up my school email account (Thankfully one of the only thing I was able to recover other than my lioden and wolvden account), and since then I haven’t had a phone/wasn’t allowed to have one due to his shit. I have been able to get a new phone (Had one once but my mother took it cause she broke her phone, later, she broke my phone also.) I’m transfering school districts now and have a high potential of losing all stuff again after turning in my chromebook (This includes but is not limited to: Fediverse accounts, Potentially discord for a long while, Email accounts (Except my main account), social medias, downloads, etc… all over again. I’d be able to hide a phone and my mother said she doesn’t care if I get a phone as long as i’m paying for it [This time since I was able to buy it she won’t be able to use it as her backup phone. Yay]. Once the school computer is returned I will only have access to Fedi, etc.. through the library computers the few times I am able to go (While my mother is gone). I sadly cannot afford a phone, yet alone basic human needs. I am a minor and do not have a job (Too young, hopefully getting one when I get back here and in school.) If I can at least get a phone this will safe the hassle of losing everyone (again for the second time) and be able to have emergency contact with people (I am a minor who walks to and from school, I walk to the store with my brother and other places, we are both minors and all I have for “protection” is a knife and an angry 14 year old)
If anyone could help that’d be amazing, even a boost helps! :QueerCatHeart_Agender:
I’m going to need roughly around $90 just for 3 months of service and a phone.
I do not have PayPal and/or any other way to accept donations right now other than Walmart gift cards so please bare with me :’c
[NEWS] SENTENCED: GOP sex trafficker's sentence is greater than victims' ages (washingtonpress.com)
Right-wing activist Anton Lazzaro has been sentenced to 21 years after being convicted of sex trafficking minors.
Minor Threat - April 2nd 1983 Live at Rollerworks in Chatsworth, CA (youtu.be)