thaack

Sort of reminds me of "Party Lines" (No, not the selective ringing, multiple subscriber/line service) used by kids in the 1970s. "Party Lines" or test lines allowed multiple callers to dial in like a conference bridge. Seemed to be used extensively by kids to just chat or hang out via the telephone network.

More info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy9zziwcV2w

Was in similar situation. For me, what worked was filling up my time with productive fulfilling hobbies/tasks. This kept my mind off the drastic change. Think of all the things that you wanted to, but didn't get to do because you didn't have time in your previous routine.

What worked for me was going to the gym during the weekday nights, then I picked up volunteering at a museum that I love on the weekends. Also spending a lot more time on a side project that got put on the backburner when my relationship was taking up a large amount of my time. Find what works for you.

This works because California requires licensing for payphones and Riley was able to FOIA state payphone database. I'm not sure if other states require licenses for payphones.

William Onyeabor got me into African fusion. He's definitely one of the most interesting characters on the scene and the synthesizers in his music were some of the best. RIP.

Afrobeat (of which Fela Kuti pioneered) and Afro-rock are genuinely some of the coolest fusion genres to ever exist.

If you need an introduction, the Nigeria 70 compilation is a great place to start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upN0WEbFmUY&list=OLAK5uy_nQZ...

This is essentiality the concept of LDAP/Active Directory.

Matt Lakeman's recent "Notes on Afghanistan" actually covers this as he first-hand experienced a similar situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban had shut off the internet:

"The internet was out. Everywhere. Across the entire country. No cell data, no wifi, no phone service, and as far as I could tell, there are no landlines in Afghanistan [...] But now the blackout was total. Our waiter was complaining to my guide that he couldn’t contact his mother in a western province. I saw other people in the crowded restaurant fiddling with their phones and looking annoyed. I asked my guide what he thought was going on. He shrugged."

"Without internet and phones, people can’t talk to loved ones, businesses can’t function, trade can’t function, and even government offices can’t function. Only the Taliban with their well-established network of short-wave radios can function. But still, if the internet remains off long enough in Afghanistan, the country’s economy and society may very well collapse. Afghans couldn’t get money from banks. Soon enough, would food stop being delivered to cities?"

https://mattlakeman.org/2026/01/05/notes-on-afghanistan/#

I think it's also understated that competition in the consumer TV market is very strong. South Korean, Chinese and Japanese manufacturers are all fighting each other and it's a market where the average consumer wants the lowest price/size. No one player controls over 30% of the market. [1] Competition is good.

[1]https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=...

Facebook[1], Google, etc all use (or used to use) MarkMonitor that offers domain squatting monitoring as a service[2] that utilizes the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy to remove offending domains violating their trademark. These services are quite expensive from my understanding.

[1] It appears Facebook now utilizes their own internal registry.

[2] https://www.markmonitor.com/domain-dispute-recovery-solution...

The floor on refurbished laser printers is about $100 on Amazon and remanufactured toner cartridges are dirt cheap often times less than $15 for 2000-6000 pages.

This is the way. There is no reason to buy ink based anymore.

That's a lot of broadcast traffic at scale.

How would you handle the ack of the broadcast? UDP can be unreliable. If you do send an ack from the destination, that singular endpoint that sent the message is going to get a number of responses equal to the number of devices on the network, which would nuke it at large scale.

I have no involvement with the plant directly. My understanding is the best luck they had was getting in good graces with local probation officers & craigslist classifieds. Job portals were pretty useless from my understanding.

It's all full time 4x10 work with the employer covering 100% of health insurance premiums.

> Most people in Western world also cannot imagine staying at conveyor belt or table doing the same assembly task whole week. I work in a factory and see this daily.

My family owns a small plastic manufacturing plant in the US. This is the biggest problem they face. The western worker's appetite for a low skill monotonous manufacturing job is very small. The business loses employees to Walmart etc. despite the factory having higher pay and significantly better benefits.

"Umberg’s bill faced resistance from Hollywood giants this summer. The Motion Picture Association and Streaming Innovators Alliance, which together represent entertainment conglomerates including Disney, Paramount, Amazon and Netflix, initially opposed the law, arguing that streaming ads come from multiple different sources and are hard to control. The MPA claimed in-house audio engineers were already working on a fix and needed time to solve the issue without facing legal threats. However, the group dropped its opposition after Umberg added legal provisions shielding streamers from lawsuits brought by private parties, leaving enforcement up to the state attorney general’s office. The amended bill passed California’s state Legislature with overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans."[1]

Wouldn't be shocked if it was a huge nothingburger enforcement wise.

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/06/dial-it-down-califo...

I think streaming is part of why I DON'T watch baseball. The DTC streaming package for my local team is $20/month. Baseball is something that I would flip on the local team and watch after work passively. The value just isn't there for $20!/month.

I also think it has a huge negative impact on youth interest in baseball. I personally got into baseball as a kid because my father would do the same - get home from work and turn on the game because it was on OTA TV. How are you getting kids interested in the sport if they can't even watch because the parents don't want to fork over that cost? Huge ripple effect. The RSN's which typically carry a vast majority of local baseball games (mlb.tv is blacked out for local markets) bet big on streaming and lost a ton of money[1]. They, in turn, attempted to gouge the remaining dedicated fans at an inflated cost. I already pay $82/month for YoutubeTv. If it's not on there, I just won't watch - in turn, I also go to the ballpark less and really don't keep up with the local team at all.

[1] Bally Sports (Diamond Sports Group) 2023 Bankruptcy

EquipmentShare is located in Columbia, MO not Columbia, SC.

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44978815

Same with University of Iowa (American College Football)

https://www.ncaa.com/video/football/2014-09-12/traditions-io...

Sure if you commit to a 500 user minimum.

You would think it would be that black and white, and under normal circumstances I would tend to agree, however pay is well above average for the location and skill especially when you factor in the benefit package.

I really think it comes down to the fact that people have no interest in working in low skill manufacturing. The business loses people to Walmart etc. where they get lower pay and no benefits all the time. There is more variety of work and potential for advancement at a company like Walmart. Even at a larger scale low skill manufacturing plant advancement is sparse.

Then tell me where these poorly qualified, undereducated Americans who can fill these low skill jobs are?

The business's biggest success with finding employees was getting in the good graces of the local probation officers who refer ex-cons to us, and that comes with its own set of problems.

Other than paying a premium for temps at a temp agency that's been the only way as of the last 5-10 years to get employees in the door. Normal applications are crickets.

>If an employee is doing an unpleasant, dead-end job with no prospect of advancement, they have to make a value judgment. If there's no prospect of advancement or any kind of wage growth (they're "low skill", so they'll be replaced if someone cheaper comes along), let alone security, then why stick around?

Exactly my point, and that's what they are doing.

There is no prospect of advancement possible. It's a small operation with 15 or so total employees. Under normal circumstances I would agree on a much larger scale.

Fascinating article.

They have toyed around with automation but the capital required to retrofit for such a small business would be intensive but is coming down.

Interestingly the automation pieces that they have been testing (multi-axis robot arms) have only became cost effective since the Chinese robots entered the market. The Chinese have completely dropped the floor on automation tooling.

My family runs a small plastic (injection molding) business in the USA. Second, soon to be third generation.

The only reason it still exists is because the products made are too expensive to ship from a country with cheaper labor as they are pretty large and heavy. And it's quite a niche product/vertical.

The biggest problem that the business faces on a day-to-day basis is employees. It's a very low skill manufacturing job. You pull parts out of the mold. The pay is good for a large midwestern MCOL city, plus full health benefits (employees don't pay a cent). It is downright impossible to find and retain reliable employees. The job sucks. I worked there when I was younger helping out and you do the same thing every minute for 8 hours a day in a hot and loud factory. It's not a career - just a job. I'm not sure how you fix that. The American appetite for a low skill manufacturing job is dead - I'm not sure it's a bad thing either.

Even the high skill stuff has already been taken over by China, their process is far more efficient. When the business needs design/tool & die for a new plastic injection mold costs and speed associated with getting that mold designed and made in America are astronomical compared to the Chinese. The Chinese will get back to you with a design proof in 24 hours at a 1/4 of the cost.

I'm building something to bypass this entirely. As an IT Director I absolutely despise when I'm evaluating a SaaS product, and they don't have public pricing and my only option is to book a call.

This is annoying because:

1) I have to spend 2-3 calls with salespeople (intro, demo usually minimum) - huge waste of time. I've already evaluated your product and determined it fits my needs.

2) At the end of all of those meetings after a couple weeks (plus the time it takes to get the quote approved) the product could be completely out of my budget. For tools like PAM or vulnerability management the pricing is relatively arbitrary.

So, I started creating https://vendorscout.net when people who have previously received quoting can anonymously upload the pricing they received for so and so users/endpoints so that you can get on the site and look up relatively accurate pricing for the product. I'm still working on the MVP but if you are interested, I'd love some help.