Some IT guy, IDK.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • It’s not difficult for me, to say the feeling isn’t felt very strongly, would probably be an understatement.

    The other comment I want to make is that I agree that there’s too many humans, however, the economy survives by constant growth, so that’s a thing. It has to do with how money works and is valuated.

    The video “money as debt” is a good resource for more info on that.

    Bluntly, I don’t care since I’ll be long dead when the economy collapses under it’s own weight.


  • I’m on the other side of the generational gap (nearly gen x, but millennial), and I was terrified during my late teens/early 20s of becoming a parent. I could not imagine raising a child the way I was living paycheque to paycheque, if I had a paycheque at all…

    That feeling never went away, and I still wouldn’t know how I could possibly afford that. I decided in my mid 20s that children would be a decision I would leave up to my wife (wherever I had a wife to make the decision). I was/am instinctually driven to want them (a feeling I mostly disregard), but given the state of the world and my own financial situation, I can’t say that I want to force any intelligent being, especially one that is my offspring, to suffer through a lifetime of this shit like I have been forced to so far.

    I didn’t ask to be here. If someone had given me a choice, I would have probably opted out of gestures all of this.

    I’m currently in a long term relationship, and we’re planning on signing the papers next year, so soon I’ll have someone I can legitimately call my wife. She is very much on the side of “never have kids”. So that’s my decision as well.

    Instinctual drive isn’t enough to cause me to overlook how things are going. I love my (non-existent) children too much, than to force them into living a life in these circumstances. Fuck no.



  • I’d bet that channel “members” don’t get ads for that channel regardless of premium status.

    IMO, Google made premium, almost nobody bought it. So they went after adblockers, hoping that people would get premium to get rid of the ads. People most just Adblock harder.

    While this is happening, one exec is peering over the fence at twitch. Where they only way to get away from ads without a pretty good Adblock, is to subscribe to the individual creator.

    So they make “memberships” to channels a thing.

    Almost nobody buys that either. So they go… What if, even if someone is premium, we give them ads, unless they’re a channel member.

    Genius.

    Paying to block ads per creator/channel/whatever, is a special level of bullshit that twitch has always had.

    The system is working as expected. The companies are trying to find the best way to extract the most value from you using their platform.


  • The act of someone sitting at a brand new Mac, with a never-before-used interface, and immediately clicking the computer icon to drag it to the trash, is such a powerful image for me.

    The statement of, “this is what I think of this computer” is so strong, because I have to believe that whomever did that must have been a tech person to be at the event; but perhaps they just thought it was a shortcut and didn’t like shortcuts on their desktop so they tried to remove it? Like, you can do this with Windows… Because the computer object (in Explorer) is immutable, and any reference to it is simply a link to that object.

    I prefer the thought of them just being like “this computer is trash” and doing that, and causing the system to crash.


  • This is the entire motivation I had to buy what I did when I became a homeowner. I don’t want a random assortment of batteries and chargers strewn around the place, especially when a replacement battery pack can run upwards of $300-500 depending on its capacity.

    I chose Dewalt, but mainly because I had a pretty capable little DeWalt 12v cordless drill for a long time and I was very happy with it and the durability it had… I purchased a pack of tools, and switched to the 20v “Max” (or whatever variant is local), which is also compatible with the flexvolt, which is good because we added a few garden tools (string trimmer, hedge trimmer, and later a lawnmower). All of the tools we have use the 20v batteries. As luck would have it, DeWalt also released a snow blower in the last few months, which we promptly purchased, since where we live we get quite a bit of snow, and nobody wants to shovel. The only catch is that it uses the 60v flexvolt batteries; the flexvolt batteries can work at 20v, so those batteries can be used on any other tool, however, since the blower is 60v, only those flexvolt batteries can be used with it. It’s the only tool that requires the higher voltage.

    There’s a lot of yellow tools. I don’t fault anyone for using a different brand; this is just what I am using.


  • Fun story: I purchased several wireless access points from an eBay seller, years back, and when I brought them online, our geolocation services on all our phones thought we were several hundred miles away from where we lived for many months. I assume the bssid data was feeding the incongruency.

    After a few months, however, whatever database was feeding our devices with bad geolocation data, was updated, and we were once again “located” in the correct spot.

    The accuracy of these systems is incredible, it will actually use, not only your own bssid, but also that of complete strangers to try to figure out where you are without turning on GPS. If your personal bssid is weak but your neighbors bssid is stronger, it will adjust your position based on the relative signal strength of each bssid that is detected. In the same way triangulation works with most radio signals.

    I’ve seen such systems estimate, with a fair amount of accuracy, client location data on a floorplan where there are a few dozen access points in the space… So it works both ways. In that case I was part of a team at a job where the client had a couple thousand square feet of floor space, and about 12-15 access points to blanket the space in coverage. We could, with some degree of accuracy, follow the location of someone as they moved through the space; knowing where they spent most of their time, and what services in the space were utilized by the guest.

    … It was a mid-sized airport.


  • Everything. Basically, if it’s not nailed down, they want to take it.

    The short list of most common data taken would be app usage stats, not necessarily just for the app in question (eg, tiktok may pull data on how many hours of screen time other apps get, like YouTube or Instagram or literally anything else), GPS info, data about how often you handle your phone (from accelerometer readings), wifi networks including the bssid (mac address) of your router, which cannot be easily changed or masked, sometimes even data from your mic when you’re not using the phone at all.

    They know when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they know when you’ve been bad or good… Oh wait, that last bit is Santa… Isn’t it?

    Anyways, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few are bold enough to upload your pictures regardless of if you are posting the images, your browser history, security, device make/model, storage of your device, the list of files in storage, text messages…

    Basically, anything that might help them identify you, what you do, where you work, when you work, how you travel, whether you’re in a relationship, how happy you are in that relationship and how long it has been going on… Anything that might lead them to provide more targeted ads. Been in a relationship for a while and you seem happy? Check out these engagement rings. Already married? Here’s some ads about parent stuff. Even something as simple as, hey, you’re single and it’s February, why not try Tinder or Grindr, or (insert app for your preference here).

    They want to know everything there is to know so they can get you to buy more crap you probably don’t need, for more than it’s worth, and keep that economic gravy train rolling.



  • Oh yeah, having headroom for microbursts is great, and factors into the precieved speed of the connection. It’s a requirement for most users to have that headroom to make the connection feel fast. But a lot more goes into the apparent “speed” of the connection than that. Having quick DNS and high-speed routing to the wireline internet connection is also important, but harder for most to grasp what will actually achieve that goal versus other products.

    The main thing is that headroom for burst traffic is mostly shared, since the channel gets used and then freed almost as fast. In this way, others can burst traffic into the channel shortly afterwards, with no detrimental effect.

    The headroom doesn’t need to be gigabits of capability in most cases. 300-450mbps is often very sufficient and may be more than what is required, depending on the usage.


  • I had multiple wired access points in a rental apartment with high wife approval factor by running cables in cup hooks along the ceiling lines. They self-tap into the wall and leave little more damage than would be caused by hanging a picture. I put a hook every 18 or so inches for support, and ran a cable under a door, up the door frame, down a hallway and into the living room (from a bedroom where we had the network gear). From there, I only had to mount the access point and connect everything. The cables were always out of the way, and I used white cables to help hide them against the walls. It wasn’t perfect, but the limits of renting are a bit limiting.

    I only had two in that place, which was plenty, and we never had bandwidth issues accessing the internet from the wifi.

    The fact is, nobody is building homes with wireless access points in mind. Whether rentals, condos, or new homes, they don’t have access point hookups. Many are now being wired with Ethernet in the walls, but nothing in the ceiling. A skilled wireless engineer can easily take a floorplan and build a wireless design with access points in ideal locations for maximum coverage and speed. Simply doing this pre-work and installing ethernet in the ceiling at these locations, is all that is required, yet, I have yet to see any builder do it. The same can be done to retrofit rentals as people vacate units and updates/renovations are done, yet, nobody is doing it.

    Those that own their home need only to find placements and pay someone to wire them in. The whole thing only needs to be done once, ever, and the locations should be fine for use for the long term.

    Fact is, neither builders, nor property owners, nor homeowners seem to have any interest in the practice. The only time I have personally seen or known of any location that is properly wired for wifi, is when someone has hired such wires to be custom installed. If it was done by default, rather than as an afterthought, retrofit or renovation, then it may be more common that people pursue such solutions. The price problem is another major hurdle, though I stand by the analysis of people paying literally several thousand dollars on internet access from an ISP, compared to a few hundred at most for a router during the same timespan (usually 1-3 years). IMO, that’s a bit like paying $50,000 over 10 years for access to the highway, but never buying a car worth more than $1000. It’s silly.

    My main point is, solutions to these problems exist, but people simply won’t pay more than a few months worth of ISP fees for their wifi hardware, then they expect it to perform well and last for many years. They will turn a blind eye to the environmental issues that plague them and instead blame everything on lackluster devices that underperform that they will continue to refuse to pay a reasonable amount to actually get quality access equipment.


  • I work with WiFi all the time and let me tell you that after looking at usage graphs for what feels like forever, you don’t need 1Gbps WiFi.

    Most clients aren’t averaging 50Mbps, nevermind 500-1000. What you want is consistent wifi. Something that doesn’t show down because you dumped everything and the kitchen sink onto it. There’s a lot of good ways to ensure this and nobody wants to pay for it.

    Simply put, dumping 30-50 client devices, between cellphones, tablets, laptops, TVs, gaming consoles, IoT things (like smart lightbulbs, fridges, etc), and in more cases than I’d like to admit, desktops… Onto a single multifunction wireless router, with little more than dual band WiFi, is generally going to suck.

    I usually hear a chorus of responses to this because people don’t really put together that their smart watch, Alexa, smart smoke detectors and thermostats, all count as wifi devices. It usually doesn’t make a huge difference how much each device is actually using the wifi, the fact that all of them are connected at the same time is, in and of itself, a problem with only a single access point where that contact can be made… Dual band or not.

    I don’t consider mesh solutions to be solving the core issue since all of the client traffic needs to end up at a single device with all the same problems. The fact that they get filtered through what is essentially, fancy repeaters, isn’t super relevant. The problem still exists. But if you suggest an infrastructure network with multiple wired access points, people generally take one look at the price, then leave and go buy the latest night hawk from Netgear at the nearest electronics store and put it out of their mind, since it’s “good enough” (which it isn’t, in the current WiFi climate).

    I want people to have better wifi, but I can’t save you all from yourselves. Now the IEEE is taking on the job, I suppose. Trying to “fix” wifi because most people can’t be arsed to install a reasonable solution for what they actually need. They’d rather spend literally thousands of dollars a year on fast internet service that they don’t need and can’t use because it’s all getting filtered through their sub $300 network that they’ve had (or will have) for two+ years, and then have the gall to complain that their wifi sucks, and they don’t get it because they’re paying $100+ a month for their fancy gigabit or multi-gigabit internet connection.


  • Yes. Absolutely. Starting again at any young age with the knowledge I have now would be amazing. Getting in on the Bitcoin bandwagon early, when you could mine multiple Bitcoin a day on little more than a core 2 duo CPU, and invest into stocks that I know will explode long before they do when they’re at an all time low.

    Financially, I’d be far better off.

    Also, avoiding mistakes of taking courses and getting diplomas that don’t matter and mostly just wasted time on my journey, or skipping the multiple years between highschool and college where I worked menial jobs.

    I also met my SO through a video game so as long as I take an active role in that community in the same way, around the same timeframe I’ll find them again… And I can skip all the pointless and ultimately degrading and emotionally damaging relationships along the way.

    I could experience the carefree fun of not having to worry about bills or payments and just live… Later, when Bitcoin explodes in value, cash in and buy a nice house…

    Who wouldn’t want that?




  • That’s fair. The feelings are different but similar, the desire to act is still there and the desired act is different due to context and that’s all appropriate IMO.

    Thanks for the reply. Personally, I don’t like people in general, so when I socialize I usually stick to private events with friends. Going out in public is a problem; like when I have to go to the grocery store or something. I’m not organized enough to use grocery delivery even though it’s available in my geographical area; so I need to go out every so often and people are the worst.

    I don’t have the same hatred and rage about it, but I certainly understand that someone could be inspired to those emotions. I’m inspired to different emotions from different triggers, but the general emotional function is the same.

    Have a wonderful day.


  • No judgement, just curious: I know it’s more rare, but do you get the same visceral reaction to grown people throwing immature temper tantrums as well? Or is it limited to just the very young?

    I just want to understand if this is more of a distaste for immaturity or if it’s only the immaturity of the immature that’s giving you that feeling.

    I’m no fan of kids, but I don’t get this kind of rage myself. I can dismiss myself from the situation long before I struggle with these kinds of feelings.


  • He had connections. May he rest in peace.

    He had fallen in with some questionable types throughout his life, partly due to his work. I won’t get into many details here, I don’t want it to be traced back to his family or anything; but due to the circumstances he found himself in, bluntly, he was worth more dead, than alive. He would only be worth anything if he died “naturally” or something, since life insurance is kind of a stickler for that sort of thing.

    All I was told was that he had made arrangements for his body to be found, and around what was going to be done afterwards to ensure that insurance paid out so his family would be taken care of.

    The circumstances were kinda BS too, it wasn’t his fault, but he was liable and there was little he could do to change that. He knew what the outcomes were and to him, death was the better option. I’m not saying I agree with his choices. I had no real part in them, I was too young at the time to really grasp what was happening, and appropriately, I was not aware of, nor involved in any of it, and heard most of what I know through my older siblings and from my father (his brother). He apparently sent my dad a note the night before he was found dead basically summarizing what was about to happen, so it was very clearly planned. As far as I’m aware, everything went according to plan and though I don’t have much contact with that part of my family, I believe they’re doing just fine.

    Just a touch more detail on the circumstances, it was some legal issue he found himself kind of “holding the bag” for (so to speak) so his outcomes were: (extremely unlikely) he would be found innocent, and allowed to return to his “normal” life - obviously he didn’t think this was possible at all. (most likely) he would be found guilty and sentenced to many years in prison. Being a convict would ruin his chosen vocation as there’s a lot of trust required in what he does and a conviction would basically exclude him from working in his field. (alternatively) he dies, insurance pays out, his family gets a big wad of cash, and he would be just as useless as if he was found guilty; but now with a pretty significant amount of money given to his family.

    I don’t hold it against him. I don’t have any strong feelings on the matter. It’s just something that happened.



  • Imagine, if you will, being so boring that you have to pick fights about how people word things.

    Listen, he said “refugees” and maybe that wasn’t the right word. But you know what? Both you and I both understood what they meant by that.

    The point of language… any language is to portray ideas between different people. In that context, OP did a fantastic job of that. we understood. Job done.

    Instead of providing any discussion of any value or merit, and apparently having the personality of wet cardboard, you chose to critique his word choice on how to describe those displaced by the issue.

    Nobody was confused. Nobody is going to conflate the struggles of actual refugees with the inconvenience of feddit being unavailable. There’s no confusion here. Fighting to reclaim the word “refugee” when nobody gives any shits about it (except you apparently), is certainly not going to win you any awards. I promise that refugees care less about what they’re called, or who appropriates the term for inappropriate uses, and they care more about migrating to a country where they will be safe from harm.

    Nobody is standing up and being proud of their refugee status, demanding that we treat their term with more respect… I know refugees, and I would think that all of them would have preferred to not have been forced to become one. Nobody chooses to be a refugee, you do it because you’re scared for your life. Scared of your neighbors, government, and national authorities. Nobody wants that.

    I know that refugees are proud of the fact that they now live in a place that’s not like the place that they left, but I have yet to meet one that’s proud that they had to flee.

    I’m pretty sure they couldn’t possibly give less of a shit about someone misusing the term “refugee”.