ddrueding
Fixture
I'll just leave this here. Full symmetrical gig fiber with all the nines of uptime. Bundled with 3 unlimited cell phones for $85/mo.
Edit: Oh, and a static IP to go with it
Edit: Oh, and a static IP to go with it
Something Random
- Thread starter ddrueding
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Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Some years ago, when I moved from Comcast consumer service to Comcast Business service, I had to be put through Retentions. Her response was "Hm. Well, I've never seen this before but I have to read this to you." At least she got a laugh out of it.
Most communities around mine have some kind of municipal fiber offering now. I'm generally happy with Comcast (a sentence never before typed in the English language), but then I hear about someone paying $60/month for 1Gb synchronous service and I have to take a moment.
Most communities around mine have some kind of municipal fiber offering now. I'm generally happy with Comcast (a sentence never before typed in the English language), but then I hear about someone paying $60/month for 1Gb synchronous service and I have to take a moment.
sedrosken
Florida Man
I'll just leave this here. Full symmetrical gig fiber with all the nines of uptime. Bundled with 3 unlimited cell phones for $85/mo.
Edit: Oh, and a static IP to go with it
I could get all that too, it'd just cost me probably 4-5 times as much all told. Such is life in the states. I don't mind "only" having 300 right now because I can't stuff much more through my AP anyway, and I'm not in the market for an upgrade in the next... I don't know, five years? 300mbit service for one man is plenty. Especially symmetrical. I also don't really care about having a static IP because the services I host for myself from home aren't sensitive to being accessed through DDNS, and I have an update client for that configured through pfSense, so every time my WAN IP changes (which isn't often, usually it's after a power outage) it immediately updates.
Sadly $60+tax is more reasonable than what I was paying Cox -- for 1000/40 from them, with unlimited data (which is a separate charge there), on promotion I was paying $75/mo. Jury's still out on the "fees", I'm waiting to get my first bill.
All told, I'm much much happier in this regard than when I lived in the middle of nowhere Kentucky and paid almost twice as much for essentially wireless DSL. It's not the same tech at all -- I think it was some highly beam-formed radio or something, when we lost line of sight to their tower it was really unstable for a while -- but the speeds were pretty comparable at 3/0.75. Granted, that's what we paid for, usually we were lucky to hit 1/0.3. I had to use NetLimiter -- software I paid for -- to throttle my computer back to something that wouldn't completely nuke the internet experience for everyone else in the house as at that point I did not live alone. Steam games took days to weeks to install, and big updates were always very, very annoying. That internet connection is half of what instilled my data hoarder tendencies in me.
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Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
There was a leak of Google Documentation over the weekend that seems to thoroughly describe how its Search functions work right now. It's an interesting read. The site is run by some kind of SEO goon, but the information is still valuable since Google is in the process of making its search services worse in the name of increasing the number of ad impressions during searches.
ddrueding
Fixture
The internet is actually only like $15/mo of that. It is also 2 unlimited smartphone data plans and a small one for our daughter, the cell stuff (unlimited data across all of europe) is the more expensive part.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
For a while after I switched to Verizon I was only getting ~100Mbps speeds, but around 400 to 500 Mbps when using devices with wifi. I didn't know why since I had connected the router to the 1Gb Ethernet port on my PC. I forgot exactly what I did, but it may have been a setting to get the port to actually operate at 1Gbps. The 1Gb Internet was part of a bundle with TV and phone. I get all the movie channels, hundreds of other channels, and a DVR. It was around $180/month when we first got it about 7 years ago. It's up to $247/month because some of the discounts expired. Still better than Time Warner, which had lousy service which dropped out quite a bit, speeds under 100Mbps, fewer TV channels and it was pushing $300/month before I switched. Some people who stayed with it were complaining about $400 bills.
I pay two hundred something for everything fibros including the 3 TVs and VOIP phones, but that is fine with me. I tried the steaming and it was awful, not worth saving a few bucks. I have to rent the Wi-Fi since the Wi-Fi combines with the TV cable, though I don't use the wireless cable. The only issue I've had in about 5 years is the main STB recorder needed to be replaced. Now I have three different UPS on the various components and about 7-10 hours run time. I put more effort into all the UPS perhaps than necessary.
sedrosken
Florida Man
Just a quick and dirty test from my laptop over WiFi.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Amazon Prime members get Grubhub+ as a standard benefit now.
I have never ordered prepared food delivery to my house. Groceries sometimes, but never food. But I do find myself sending food to other people from time to time.
Also, I pay $150/month for 2.5Gbps down/50Mbps up on Comcast Business. Actual speeds vary quite a bit and I usually test speeds against systems in my colo since many ISPs cheat at speed tests. Comcast is my only service option. There's no fiber and AT&T DSL is a joke.
I have never ordered prepared food delivery to my house. Groceries sometimes, but never food. But I do find myself sending food to other people from time to time.
Also, I pay $150/month for 2.5Gbps down/50Mbps up on Comcast Business. Actual speeds vary quite a bit and I usually test speeds against systems in my colo since many ISPs cheat at speed tests. Comcast is my only service option. There's no fiber and AT&T DSL is a joke.
Who the bleep wants Grubhub? The name alone is revolting. I know many cultures eat larvae, but I don't like the texture.
I just want Amazons to deliver to my address not somewhere elese where it gets stolen and I still have to pay for it.
I just want Amazons to deliver to my address not somewhere elese where it gets stolen and I still have to pay for it.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I use food delivery services to get meals to far flung friends, actually. Given my friends are younger and not established in their lives, sending someone a couple cartons of Chinese food on a move-in day or during finals week is usually highly appreciated.
A couple years ago, I used Boomerang, the food delivery platform in the US Virgin Islands, to get some cupcakes to someone on her birthday. I spent about $20 extra over the cost of the food, but she's never stopped talking about it.
A couple years ago, I used Boomerang, the food delivery platform in the US Virgin Islands, to get some cupcakes to someone on her birthday. I spent about $20 extra over the cost of the food, but she's never stopped talking about it.
ddrueding
Fixture
In the US our daughter would use food delivery if she was home alone, as it was unusual for kids to go out for food on their own, and safety was a concern. Here it isn't a problem, and it doesn't hurt that she's already taller than most adults.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Prime has benefits I don't get to use, like discounts at Whole Foods, but I love my fast shipping and consider that worthwhile enough on its own. If somebody tells me GrubHub is the reason my prime bill has to go up, that's a different story. For now I'm glad to have it.
So again today, my 1-day package somehow is lost. What do you bet it will be deliverated when I'm somewhere else?
The reliablity is just terrible now - about one of 4 packages is not delivered on the expected date or to my address. It's sickening.
The reliablity is just terrible now - about one of 4 packages is not delivered on the expected date or to my address. It's sickening.
Remember the old days when the "company" paid for "high speed" internet?
Mine actually does cover this and I'm fully remote now
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Since the outer doors on my apartment building lock and I hate dealing with that, I have most things delivered to a business where I have keys that's down the street. Maybe 5% of my deliveries happen outside business hours but the location is unambiguous and generally secure. If the package isn't there when I show up, Amazon replaces it.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
sedrosken
Florida Man
While it is quite vindicating to see it, I don't think it'll mean anything. He's certain to appeal and he might just win it, and even if he doesn't, I highly doubt he's going to prison, which is, of course, the only possible way it stops him from being elected. Biden's pissed off too much of the younger crowd in his base with his support of Israel, myself included, and while I will compromise my morals to vote for him over Trump, I know several folks that won't. Best case scenario, Biden squeaks it and there's even more of a 'wahhh they stole our election1!!11!one!1' over it, possibly one or several more riots and attempted coups, only for him to croak in office midway through his second term. Not that I think Trump has four more years left in him, either. I think not even really allowing Biden to be primaried damaged the Democratic party's reputation quite severely, and they already didn't have a surplus of good reputation to hand.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
Cries with my barely reaching 50Mbps / 15Mbps connection on VSDL2... (That's the best on offer and no upgrades for at least 2 years where I am).
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
sed, The Democrats should've at least at held a primary to have some meaningful policy discourse. The GenZ I run with mostly can't stand Biden as an out of touch papaw and I'll admit that he's been entirely too tolerant of Lekud's actions in Palestine. "Active participant in genocide" is not a good look.
I suspect there will be some rapid shifts in polling from the GOP. Trump was still only getting 75% of the primary vote in solid red states months after his challengers dropped out of the race and I predict the GOP primary will be the most entertaining one of my lifetime as a consequence. He's not as popular with the party as he was in 2020 and 75% of the 30% of the US population who represent his cult aren't election winning numbers. Trump isn't going to be nearly as attractive to apathetic voters who have heard all summer that he's a convicted felon, either.
One other thing I will say is that even relatively low information young people in my deep red state are truly, deeply pissed about Dobbs v. Jackson and I think that might be enough to cause some waves. Democrats have been overperforming their polling in almost every statewide and national race in the country over the last two years.
I suspect there will be some rapid shifts in polling from the GOP. Trump was still only getting 75% of the primary vote in solid red states months after his challengers dropped out of the race and I predict the GOP primary will be the most entertaining one of my lifetime as a consequence. He's not as popular with the party as he was in 2020 and 75% of the 30% of the US population who represent his cult aren't election winning numbers. Trump isn't going to be nearly as attractive to apathetic voters who have heard all summer that he's a convicted felon, either.
One other thing I will say is that even relatively low information young people in my deep red state are truly, deeply pissed about Dobbs v. Jackson and I think that might be enough to cause some waves. Democrats have been overperforming their polling in almost every statewide and national race in the country over the last two years.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
This actually hurts my heart. At least your upload speed isn't garbage. DSL where I live is usually rate limited to 5Mbps up.
sedrosken
Florida Man
I hope you're right, Merc, and I hope I don't wake up November 6th to see that Trump's due back in the White House, but even with RFK Jr siphoning off votes from him, it's a little terrifying to see just how much momentum he still has. If not him, I shudder to think just who's coming down the pipe next.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Sadly, people get the leaders they deserve. I saw firsthand during covid how ignorant and selfish a large part of the population is. This is Trump's base. He has the kind of momentum he does because these people want to be him. They want to get their way regardless of how it hurts others. We saw the priorities of the GOP when they rushed to make abortions much harder after Dobbs v. Jaskson. We also saw it when they fought to end the enhanced unemployment benefits, eviction moratoriums, larger child tax credit, plus when they bought a case to the Supreme Court where they had no standing to end Biden's student loan forgiveness. I especially hate them for that last part as it's entirely possibly I may never get Social Security because of it unless my loan gets cancelled under the new income-based repayment provisions. In theory it should have been cancelled as I have more than ten years of payments, but I'm still waiting.
Trump's base are the ones who drive huge pickup trucks, then brag about how they love to waste gas and pollute the air, as if it's a virtue. These are disgusting, selfish people. I wish we could send them to Palestine. As least Israel's bombings would be serving a useful purpose. They're traitors just like their Messiah.
Trump's base are the ones who drive huge pickup trucks, then brag about how they love to waste gas and pollute the air, as if it's a virtue. These are disgusting, selfish people. I wish we could send them to Palestine. As least Israel's bombings would be serving a useful purpose. They're traitors just like their Messiah.
ddrueding
Fixture
That is super rough Chewy. I didn't think of the Gold Coast as that remote? Starlink might actually be better?
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I wish he had this judge when sentencing time comes:
You will hang by the neck, captain, until you are dead, dead, dead.
Star Trek (1966) S01E18 clip with quote You will hang by the neck, captain, until you are dead, dead, dead. Yarn is the best search for video clips by quote. Find the exact moment in a TV show, movie, or music video you want to share. Easily move forward or backward to get to the...
getyarn.io
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Which thread? I'd gladly post in it instead of here but I don't know which thread you're talking about.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
We're not that remote, but our infrastructure provider (NBN) rolled out VDSL to many areas in the last 10 years and are now ripping all that out to replace with GPON based fibre. (The project started as a full GPON rollout and got changed at the start of the project due to political interference - this is a whole other story).
The suburb I live in (I'll be moving in 2 mths) can now upgrade to GPON at either free or very low cost, but due to my wife's medical conditions, we have medical priority assistance tagged onto our service and NBN are refusing to upgrade those as they can't guarantee no downtime from when they switch over from VDSL to fibre. (Due to many botched upgrades users are being left connectivity for weeks at a time, and people with medical priority assistance status must have 99.99% uptime on the service. For example we are only allowed 1 line fault every 3mths, lasting no more than 5 minutes, or the federal government can leverage massive fines against NBN for failure in service delivery).
As for Starlink, I'm not one to give money to Elon...
Anyway the place we moving to has a fibre connection, so slow speeds won't be a problem for to much longer.
sedrosken
Florida Man
I'm about 90% sure HP bricked my printer because I didn't hook it back up to the internet. I think it's one of those stupid HP+ things. So I have a hundred dollar paperweight less than a year after I bought it, a fancy new target to hone my golf swing in on -- except with a sledgehammer -- and I'm in the market for an upgrade anyway. I don't need color, but I would like onboard PostScript and/or PCL support without needing CUPS to translate, since CUPS is apparently transitioning away from this functionality and more toward "driverless" printing, which I think means basically just doing everything through AirPrint. That's all fine and good for things made this decade, but I'd like to print from whatever -- meaning, I need PostScript or PCL. And I want a feeder for copying.
Being old enough that it can't communicate back to the manufacturer for purposes of screwing over the end user would be ideal, but I know that anything that can connect to the network directly will be able in theory to do that, so I will settle for a printer from a time in which it was much less accepted for them to screw over the end user will also be acceptable. I've basically narrowed the selection down to a handful of Brother models, namely the MFC-7840W, the 7860DW, the L2740 and 50 DW/XL, just... everything MFC in this list provided by Brother.
If you've got any non-HP recommendations I'd be willing to hear them out, too, but the two things I need are PostScript/PCL and a document feeder. My budget is around 150 bucks total, but I'm not opposed to buying used if I can find it in good condition for a decent price.
Being old enough that it can't communicate back to the manufacturer for purposes of screwing over the end user would be ideal, but I know that anything that can connect to the network directly will be able in theory to do that, so I will settle for a printer from a time in which it was much less accepted for them to screw over the end user will also be acceptable. I've basically narrowed the selection down to a handful of Brother models, namely the MFC-7840W, the 7860DW, the L2740 and 50 DW/XL, just... everything MFC in this list provided by Brother.
If you've got any non-HP recommendations I'd be willing to hear them out, too, but the two things I need are PostScript/PCL and a document feeder. My budget is around 150 bucks total, but I'm not opposed to buying used if I can find it in good condition for a decent price.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Brother is my go to for printers under almost all circumstances. I even like its multifunction inkjets and believe me that I do not say that lightly. The printer repair people I know don't like them but from talking to them it sounds like HP printers are just more profitable for them.
I like Canon for pure photo printing. All the plotters I see right now are HP but that's because the service companies only push those.
I like Canon for pure photo printing. All the plotters I see right now are HP but that's because the service companies only push those.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
It really sucks trying to buy a gift for someone well off enough to just buy whatever they want the instant it crosses their mind.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I haven't bought gifts for anyone in ages. Both my siblings fall into the category Merc describes. My mother wasn't herself for the last decade of her life, so gifts would have been pointless. She would have lost them or threw them in a closet. The only gift I've given for like the last ten years has been money.
I never had a SO to worry about buying gifts for. I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse. Not too many friends, either. Most of the gifts I might have gotten from friends were in exchange for favors I had done for them. As a result, I never felt obligated to get them anything.
Back in my 20s and 30s I bought a lot more gifts for family members. Still hard to do when they mostly buy stuff they need. I tried to buy stuff they liked but never would have considered buying themselves. I sometimes made stuff also. I think that's the most meaningful type of gift. It's unique by its nature. It says to the person you were worth all the time I put into creating this, as opposing to just buying something at a store.
I never had a SO to worry about buying gifts for. I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse. Not too many friends, either. Most of the gifts I might have gotten from friends were in exchange for favors I had done for them. As a result, I never felt obligated to get them anything.
Back in my 20s and 30s I bought a lot more gifts for family members. Still hard to do when they mostly buy stuff they need. I tried to buy stuff they liked but never would have considered buying themselves. I sometimes made stuff also. I think that's the most meaningful type of gift. It's unique by its nature. It says to the person you were worth all the time I put into creating this, as opposing to just buying something at a store.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
My father travelled his whole life and now he doesn't want to go anywhere he can't drive in less than a couple hours. He's also a guy who doesn't want any help for anything he knows how to do himself, and he's a guy who has learned how to do more or less anything that has to do with home improvement, so I couldn't even get him a day of landscaping help for example.
I suppose that I'm thinking about this because of Father's day. I've never even tried to do anything for that. It's barely a holiday and I suspect LM and jtr at least remember when it wasn't even a thing. I barely speak to him but at the same time, I think I probably talk to him more than anyone other than my mother or his twin brother. He's a very self-contained person. If I ask him what he wants, there's a 98% chance he'll say something about a grandchild and he's not getting any of those.
I make lengthy, handwritten cards. Mostly because I'm also a person who still writes letters for social reasons. Unfortunately, that's also expected behavior for people who know me. Same with printing photos.