What are you doing today?
- Thread starter Alli
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Mama told me there'd be days like these. There'd be days like these, Mama told me.
Nycturne
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Saw mom on the weekend before picking up the cat. My brother his wife showed up. My father was there. So she had everyone in the area present at the same time. She definitely seems more stable than she has been in the past. But this is more how I’d want the end to be, surrounded by family, comfortable, and shooting the shit, as it were.
Got the cat, and she’s been resting comfortably at home. Happy to be able to at least be able to use a familiar cat bed, litter box, and food. She’s a little overeager though and tried to jump up on the main bed last night to join us (night before she just slept in her bed overnight), and failed. Had to show her the steps to get up on the bed. But this morning she was at it again, jumping up on the bed rather than using the steps. *sigh*
Got the cat, and she’s been resting comfortably at home. Happy to be able to at least be able to use a familiar cat bed, litter box, and food. She’s a little overeager though and tried to jump up on the main bed last night to join us (night before she just slept in her bed overnight), and failed. Had to show her the steps to get up on the bed. But this morning she was at it again, jumping up on the bed rather than using the steps. *sigh*
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Good man.
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Well, that was aggravating. I had to get some work done on my car, and it was pretty expensive. My cousin took me down to the shop, and when I went to pay with my card (which takes money out of my checking account – I have never had a credit card because I am very averse to debt). The cost of the work overran the limit on my card, so I called the bank to get them to approve the excess; the bank (small CU, actually) was closed on a Tuesday, for some sort of "team meeting" thing. I was short, my cousin had driven home, and there was no way to get the difference.
By a stroke of luck, I had a paper check in my wallet, and the shop manager was willing to accept it. But it sure was aggravating to be unable to access my money and stuck miles from home, with my car right there.
By a stroke of luck, I had a paper check in my wallet, and the shop manager was willing to accept it. But it sure was aggravating to be unable to access my money and stuck miles from home, with my car right there.
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I applaud the aversion to debt but maybe it couldn't hurt to have a card on hand for emergencies should they arise?
On a side note this is an awesome time to be debt free, especially if you don't have anything in that Trump market roller coaster, there is absolutely security in that right now. I'm thinking we should've stuck ours under the mattress the day that mother took office.
Herdfan
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Get an American Express. In their simplest form they are a "charge" card, not a "credit" card. You have to pay it off every month. They do have some pay over time options but you don't have to use them.
rdrr
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One problem I have found with a card you don't use often, is the CC companies don't like you not using them. Eventually you will get a snail mail or email saying "if you don't use your card by X date we are going to cancel". Of corse if you are like me and toss every one of the obvious CC deals snail mail, you can miss a few of those warnings.I applaud the aversion to debt but maybe it couldn't hurt to have a card on hand for emergencies should they arise?
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I don't disagree, but many vendors dislike it because they have a higher fee.
Herdfan
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Very true, although not as prevalent as in the past.
rdrr
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Eggs, $0.39! Think of the profit we can make if we only invent a time machine!
Herdfan
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Setup Starlink internet today.
Yeah, I know you all now hate Musk after liking him, but Starlink was really the best option for me here.
We have no wired internet of any kind because the developer of the neighborhood refused to pay what the cableco wanted to run the lines when it was being built. In theory I could run one myself since the conduit is there, its just that it would cost a few thousand dollars for just the wire. Then I would have to snake it through a couple thousand feet of conduit. So it would probably cost in excess of $5K for what everyone says is crappy service anyway.
My other 2 options are the WISP I currently have, but it is expensive and maxes out at 28M down. He keeps promising to upgrade the speeds, but six months later, he hasn't. Option 2 is Hughesnet/Viasat, but the lag on those is horrible because, well physics. And they have limits on downloads, etc.
I would have loved to try either T-Mobile or Verizon home internet, but they haven't got 5GUW out to me yet. It is in town so it is probably coming at some point..
And Starlink is running a promotion that provides a free kit (was $349) in exchange for a 12 month commitment. No big deal on that as I need internet.
So far, so good. I hit 168M down and 20M up. Streaming seems fine so we will give it a try. I have 30 days to try it before I am locked in to the 12 months.
Yeah, I know you all now hate Musk after liking him, but Starlink was really the best option for me here.
We have no wired internet of any kind because the developer of the neighborhood refused to pay what the cableco wanted to run the lines when it was being built. In theory I could run one myself since the conduit is there, its just that it would cost a few thousand dollars for just the wire. Then I would have to snake it through a couple thousand feet of conduit. So it would probably cost in excess of $5K for what everyone says is crappy service anyway.
My other 2 options are the WISP I currently have, but it is expensive and maxes out at 28M down. He keeps promising to upgrade the speeds, but six months later, he hasn't. Option 2 is Hughesnet/Viasat, but the lag on those is horrible because, well physics. And they have limits on downloads, etc.
I would have loved to try either T-Mobile or Verizon home internet, but they haven't got 5GUW out to me yet. It is in town so it is probably coming at some point..
And Starlink is running a promotion that provides a free kit (was $349) in exchange for a 12 month commitment. No big deal on that as I need internet.
So far, so good. I hit 168M down and 20M up. Streaming seems fine so we will give it a try. I have 30 days to try it before I am locked in to the 12 months.
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Interesting that you are forced into these options, I can't imagine the developer is too well liked, did you guys know it would be like this going in? If it were me I would've likely never moved into the development.
We have ATT and they actually came out and ran a full trunk to the neighborhood when we called them as it was new and they knew it would be needed anyway. It was several blocks away.
Of course I'm not sure how that would work in other neighborhoods but it's too bad this was your best option. Musk aside, satellite is always the least favorable option for standard home internet. Hope it works out for you though, who knows maybe things are better now.
Herdfan
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Yeah, but like I said, even the wired options here suck. I know people who can get wired who still pay for Starlink because it is better. Shouldn't be, but it is.
The view was just too good to pass up. I can see all the way across the valley 20 miles to Sedona. I'm not sure I would have stayed married if I chose ISP over the view. LOL.
The offspring has ATT fiber to her apartment. And not the fake fiber with copper as the last mile, but fiber into her unit. She gets 1G down most of the time.
My ISP journey has been a bit different over the years. When we moved into our neighborhood in WV back in the mid 90's, the infrastructure was still being built out, so there was no cable. So while we were on our honeymoon, my dad had DirecTV installed and I am still with them 30+ years later. They finally did get cable down our street, but no internet. So I started out with the 1-way satellite where you dialed in to a hub and then your outgoing request went via dialup, but came to you via satellite. Worked ok, but not great as you still had to dial in. Then they came out with 2-way satellite and I was an early adopter of that since at least it was "always-on".
We couldn't have DSL because as people moved in and a small business park opened, all the phone lines were to the CO were used, so they put in a street cabinet with a fiber feed. That is great for phone, but since lightspan didn't have an internet card yet, no DSL. So I plodded along with satellite. Then I was talking to a Verizon tech about when they may get DSL over lightspan, he gave me a hint. He told me to order an ISDN line to my house. I had considered this at one point, but it was expensive and topped out at 128k. But he explained that since ISDN was still a regulated service and it only ran on copper, I would get a copper pair back to the CO (the old copper was still in place for the older lines).
Sure enough, I ordered ISDN and a month later, I had a copper pair and not long after that, I had DSL with 750k down. And after years with satellite, I thought I had won the internet lottery. But anyone remember Adelphia cable? It was an east coast cableco that went under due to embezellment. But they had bought out the old cable system and was upgrading it to fiber to the hub. We had about 60 homes and 60 businesses on our fiber link and it was the best internet you could get. Very rarely did we have network slowdowns and it was very stable. Then Adelphia filed for bankruptcy and our system got sold to Comcast and the rest of the Adelphia system got sold to Time Warner. And the head end went to TW, so service got real crappy for about a year. To the point I almost went back to DSL. But they finally got the bugs worked out and I had very reliable service until we moved.
Of course I'm not sure how that would work in other neighborhoods but it's too bad this was your best option. Musk aside, satellite is always the least favorable option for standard home internet. Hope it works out for you though, who knows maybe things are better now.
Yes, old satellite internet sucked. The latency was horrible mainly because it was a 46,000 mile round trip to the satellite and back. Twice. So pings were close to a second, so online gameing was impossible and they had the FAP poilicy which limited your downloads. And not like some unknown data cap measured in GB, but one measured daily in MB. Exceed it and you go back to dial-up speeds until the next day. Bad thing was it wasn't a hard number, but one based on current load. You could basically download all you wanted overnight, but hit 500MB during evening hours and you would get throttled.
Starlink is different in that it uses LEO satellites about 325 miles up. So latency is much, much lower than with GEO orbits. So far, so good, but it has only been a day and the antenna is basically laying on the gound. I have a mount ordered and will do a more permanent install next weekend. I just pulled 100/28 with a 41ms ping, so if it stays like that I will be happy. Plus $30/mo cheaper.
rdrr
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I didn't "like" the guy well before he came out and said he wasn't liberal. Not sure when that exactly was, but the whole Doge meme coin (not Department of Government Efficiency) shenanigans, his constant manipulation of the Tesla stock and ignoring and getting away with SEC violations, and the failure to deliver FSD and charge for it even.
Again, I don't remember exactly when, but because of all of the above I did a deep on Elon's history. I know this was sometime before Covid, but there were a lot of anti-Musk people even then. I know some of it was crap, but there was a fair amount that was true. Too your point and to be honest my distaste of Elon has grown, like the grinch's heart, since DOGE (and yes this time I mean the cuts to the Government).
Interesting. Yes I worked with satellite technology back in the late 90s (for commercial enterprises), and I would never have used that type of technology for my internet. I did hear that there was another Low Orbit internet venture trying to get established, maybe a Jeff Bezos or someone else of that ilk (?). Anyway it will eventually cause problems for NASA or SpaceX because of all the congestion that will be up there eventually. Maybe not soon, but who knows how much further into the future.Yes, old satellite internet sucked. The latency was horrible mainly because it was a 46,000 mile round trip to the satellite and back. Twice. So pings were close to a second, so online gameing was impossible and they had the FAP poilicy which limited your downloads. And not like some unknown data cap measured in GB, but one measured daily in MB. Exceed it and you go back to dial-up speeds until the next day. Bad thing was it wasn't a hard number, but one based on current load. You could basically download all you wanted overnight, but hit 500MB during evening hours and you would get throttled.
Starlink is different in that it uses LEO satellites about 325 miles up. So latency is much, much lower than with GEO orbits. So far, so good, but it has only been a day and the antenna is basically laying on the gound. I have a mount ordered and will do a more permanent install next weekend. I just pulled 100/28 with a 41ms ping, so if it stays like that I will be happy. Plus $30/mo cheaper.
Let us know how your signal is impacted in heavy rain, but I think that might be a rare occurrence in AZ. I am not sure if that would still be a problem with the low orbit satellites, but it seems like it would.
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Nycturne
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Some of it is that Elon was doing stuff people supported (and I still think the Falcon 9 is an impressive engineering achievement), but yeah, as you peel back the onion things get weirder and weirder. Many people can get under the radar by simply not bringing their personal life into the spotlight, and keeping everyone's focus on the final product (Steve Jobs is an example of this). Musk is not one of those people.
So it's more that as he's been in the spotlight longer, it's harder to keep all those things that people don't like under wraps. Especially as people get time to examine claims (and products) and pull them apart, and you start seeing the pattern of overpromising, overpromising, overpromising, and you just get tired of it, even if he does oversee some successes.
That's been one of my concerns. Starlink and Kupier look to bring up the number of LEO satellites in orbit by an order of magnitude, and Starlink already has more satellites in orbit than everyone else combined. The impact on astrophotography (and thus ground-based space observation) is already noticeable in terms of extra time required to capture data due to extra satellite tracks from the lower, brighter, satellites in large quantities.
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This is a great explanation. He really seemed like an innovator until we learned he was just riding on the backs of geniuses he bought out after these things had been created and then overpromising the actual capabilities. It was a real let down TBH, especially all the false promises of Full Self Driving.
The Cybertruck is a much better example of his own vision. Regardless of anyone's politics, it is just the ugliest vehicle ever created (and I've lived through the AMC Hornet and the Ford Pinto). It shows the he actually has nothing innovative or creative from his own mind.
IMO Musk is a great salesman/bullshitter and that's what has gotten him to where he is today, it's also what appeals to Trump.