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The hit of the summer so far in our pool has been the Airtrack/

I was skeptical at first, but after seeing how many different ways Laia and Sofia have fun with it, I am a big thumbs up. Works great in and out of the pool, as a great pool toy or a a gymnastics mattress to practice all sorts of acrobatics. Recommended.

Learned something I did not know this weekend.

The WiFi Alliance (which certifies WiFi standards) and regulatory bodies require that only WPA3 (or higher) security is allowed for devices operating in the 6 GHz band, which is the new spectrum introduced by WiFi 6E.

This requirement was put in place to ensure the 6 GHz band, which offers much more spectrum and potential for less interference, is secure by default with the latest encryption and authentication protections. Specifically:

- WPA2 is not allowed on 6 GHz by the standard.

This mandate improves overall network security and prevents legacy, less-secure protocols from being used on the new band.

So, to use WiFi 6E’s 6 GHz band, both the router/access point and client device must support WPA3 security.

By default, my Nest WiFi Pro does NOT have WPA3 turned on. Which means, by default, most people are not taking advantage of its "key" new feature at the time which was WiFi 6E. If course we have WiFI 7 now as well, but that's for another day.

So, Laia is going into 8th grade next year, believe it or not. She needs a new calculator, and asked for TI-84 Plus CE which seems nice. Made me think of my HP 48GX, I loved this device which was probably my "first computer". Was incredibly powerful, I got it to play music and video games! If I tried hard enough I believe I can still find it in my basement, and I bet still works fine. They were built like a tank.

In fact, just for fun I asked ChatGPT to compare them:

TI-84 Plus CE:
- Modern UI and color display.
- Fast, responsive, great for high school/college curriculum.
- Easier to use and widely supported (especially for standardized tests).
- Rechargeable and lightweight.

HP 48GX:
- Extremely powerful for its time, with programmable stack-based RPL.
- Expandable via memory cards — rare for calculators.
- Cult following among engineers for symbolic math and system control.
- Complex, but powerful if mastered.

At home, for home automation, I decided years ago to use the Amazon Alexa platform. It works reasonably well in most situations. I have Alexa devices spread throughout the house controlling various things, primary lights, bulbs, led strips, and switches. I have several brands of switches, one fhem being Wyze for outdoors, which works well via WiFi. One of the switches recently stopped working seemingly for no reason. After some troubleshooting I figured out Wyze decided its link to Alexa should expire. No prior warning, email, notification, nothing. It just quit working. It wasn't until I review the Alexa Skill that I noticed it had changed to say "This skill's link to Alexa has expired". Huh? Why did it do that, but more importantly, why did it not tell me? So strange the choices that manufacturers make. I can't think of a scenario where this expiration of a skill would be helpful or useful... Especially if you do not notify the owner. In any event, once I understood what was happening I was able to re-link by skill. But it was an inconvenience and took time to figure it out. Poor experience for consumers. Wyze, you can do better.

And Laia won a yearly Arnold Award for the Juniors class on Sachem Swim Club - the largest swim club on Long Island! It reflects her commitment and work to prepare and swim the 200 meters butterfly which is the hardest even in swim. Congrats Laia!