twothamendment

"It's amazing to me there isn't a system that we can automatically pull from, of trusted channels..."

I like it, but who gets to decide which sources are trusted?

I don't have a backhoe, does an excavator count?

I once hit a gas line. With a jackhammer. 8” below the surface. That should never happen, but did.

Lots of great points to agree with! I do want to point out that rural isn't just about trucks.

Distances are greater (Costco is an hour away), the need for ground clearance, real AWD or 4x4 and lack of a local service center - those are real limiting factors. EVs don't have to replace a truck, just an Outback.

Off the topic a bit, but you got me thinking - I drive WAY less now than I did from the suburbs. Sure Costco is an hour away, but when you only go once a month it doesn't add up to much.

"EVs simply are not there yet."

How do we know this? Despite tax breaks we still have to pass laws telling people they will have to buy them! If they were ready I'd be able to buy one locally, have it serviced locally and take a trip without needing to plan stops to charge.

"It's tone deaf and out of touch"

Amen. As someone who lived in a city and did the commute and left it all, I've realized that many people can't imagine what life is like somewhere else. An EV in this area it is a cross between a child's plaything and a rich person's toy - but I get that for someone else they are perfect. I'm glad we aren't all the same and in the same circumstances, but I wish that was easier to keep in mind.

I lost a fuel line in a place with no cell reception. It was pretty cool to sit back and wait for help after calling on my ham radio. Yeah, not as cool as satellites, but it can be a very useful hobby, even on a budget.

Also, from areas without cell service, sending a text message from a radio to a phone is pretty cool. Even the teenagers were impressed with "old man" technology.

No affiliation, but check out hamstudy.org

A route 53 propagation issue caused a bunch of our web servers to be unable to connect to the read replicas of our RDS cluster. The cluster scaled in a RR, but the DNS change took hours to propagate. The web servers kept trying to connect to the replica that didn't exist.

Our workaround was to put the IP address in the hosts files - not an ideal setup, but it got the job done.

I'm glad they have a policy to deal with this scale of storage growth. I'd rather pay for Google one than see Photos RIP like so many other Google products.

It all depends on the scale of not only the app, but the organization too. We have enough people to click buttons in RDS. We don't have enough to mess around with replication, backups, etc. The cost isn't just for the hardware, but the services that we'd otherwise have to hire someone to do.

I used to work at a place that would borrow hardware from one client in order to handle the load on another. It was for seasonal stuff, a few days a year when we knew someone would melt down if they didn't have double or triple the capacity, but they didn't need it the rest of the year.

Now I deal in auto scale groups and don't care how many servers we use or need as long as it isn't wasteful. "Hardware" that isn't ours is so easy to swap out, try a different size or scale that is hate to go back to metal.

I miss why. He was great to work with. His mind worked in differently than anyone I've worked with. He was still so nice, humble and a good teacher. Famous for Ruby, he could twist any language to solve a problem - or twist it just for the fun of it.

I had one of those radio shack dialers. They were still selling them in 1998, but were suspicious when you asked for that crystal. The intent was to store phone numbers in it, slap it up to the microphone and let it dial for you. I may or may not have added a second crystal and a switch to pick which crystal to use.

In the memory you could store the tones for a nickel, dime and quarter. Maybe this was a red box? It worked great provided you dropped at least one physical coin to trigger the switch in the phone.

By leaving the original crystal in, it was also a white box, if I'm remembering right. I only ran into one phone that it was useful on. If the phone was setup so you had a dial tone, but the keypad was disabled until you paid, you could dial with the device - just like rat shack intended.

I'm sure I lost more on parts than I gained in calls - that wasn't really the point. Good times!

Yes, that is how life works.

I have a fence around my garden/orchard. It is tall enough to keep the deer out, electrified to keep the bears out, netted to keep the birds out - but ground squirrels leave me no choice but to eliminate them from the area.

If they would stay away, I wouldn't have to "murder" them. At least they don't go to waste, there are plenty of hungry things out there to move them up the food chain!

It isn't just about weight distribution.

My yard is a forest. I have a mini excavator with tracks and I can sneak in and out of places without disturbing things too much - as long as I don't have to turn sharp (and the ground isn't too wet). I think the walking machines might have an advantage there. The tracks can only slide sideways when you turn, that tears stuff up.

She wouldn't last five minutes chained in my basement because she'd start singing and I'd throw her out! Next if be looking for the person who put her there because that is not an acceptable practical joke! I'm glad she has security.

I wouldn't say Malt-o-meal is indistinguishable from the name brand because in many cases I like it better. The same? No, but they are for sure worth a try.

Anyone in my family can tell the difference between Kellogg's raisin bran and M-o-m, so I think it is safe say some people would notice a counterfeit cereal.

Now I'm hungry...

Some of us have only one ISP to pick from. I look forward to seeing what Starlink can offer, just so I know who to call if my ISP decides they don't like me. Nothing would kill my data freedom like a lack of pipeline.

I found that a 14" circular saw with the guard removed was a great tool. It demanded a lot of respect - much like some tools in Linux.

./run-saw --yes-without-the-guard

Yeah, I'd rather have a neighbor with a shark than a neighbor with a dog.

If they are songs I know well, lyrics don't bother me. If it is a new song I find it hard to concentrate because I'm busy listening.

I've found my 5.11 pants to last a lot longer than Carhart did. I was really disappointed in the later. Another brand that suppressed me was undrarmor. I avoided them because they were expensive and popular. Then I got a deal on a hoodie and it outlasted many other goodies. Since then I've picked up a few more on eBay and have been just as happy. I want quality that will last for a decade (or more).

Property taxes, car registration, school lunch. Those are the most common for me. The first two can be paid with a card, but they tack on a fee.

When I was 18 I had saved about $10k. I noticed on my statement it said I was being taxed. What? I went into the branch to ask about it and they couldn't tell me why tax was being taken out or when it would stop. I asked for a cashier's check for the full balance so I could close my account. The teller's jaw hit the desk. What did they expect?

A bank that can't explain their own statement to me is no bank of mine.

I had faster delivery of a pallet on FedEx Freight than I've ever seen from FedEx Ground. Ground is my least favorite (but Amazon doesn't do their own deliveries here).

Insurance will use whatever data they can get in an attempt to be more accurate. My address is plagued by a fire risk map. Companies will insure my neighbor, but not me. At some point a person or machine drew a live on a map and I crossed it.

A firefighter looked this location and concluded that if either house burns they will both likely burn. If the insurance companies believed him would they cover me or drop my neighbor? It is a crazy industry. Vegas anyone?

Until Stellar, I've never been followed or contacted by some rando. Now if I see either from a person who only has stellar and bitcoin attached to their profile I just block them. Hopefully this Dec 10th announcement returns some peace and quiet to keybase.

My wife received the first airdrop and then they wanted her mobile number while I've never been prompted for it. I doubt too many people were willing to sell their mobile number for some funny money. More for me! (Not that I know what I'll do with it.)

If someone could acquire the memories of Documentum from my mind I might pay them!

"I just wonder how many companies got conned into basing their printing infrastructure on yet another Google experiment."

I use it at home and like it, but when it came up as a potential solution for a project at work this the exact reason we didn't go with it.

It is out out of touch arguments like this that prevent good management of many of our forests. We can have healthy forests, jobs and resources to build with, but when people too far away sit around with a calculator and make a decision, we don't get any of them.

All your math doesn't change the fact that there are too many* trees in my area.

*Too many does not mean endless supply.

That is something I've wondered too. I imagine foundations, elevator shafts and other key parts might still be concrete. Buildings like this are fascinating: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/03/19/mjostarne-worlds-tallest-t...

Frankly, you shouldn't assume you know how many trees are around me.

Plantation grown and old growth are very different. Just because it is a forest doesn't mean it is old growth.

I have a lot of trees and the State land next to me has even more that need thinned. I've thinned out my land for better forest health, better wildlife habitat and to reduce fire danger. The State would do well to do the same, but I is very hard to log anything but private land around here.

What happened to my logs? They went to a mill and some for pulp. They weren't old growth, that was gone long ago, but new products like CLT can make use of smaller trees.

Plantations are great, but this whole county grows trees like crazy. It isn't hard to look around and find something that can be logged in a response way, but getting approval is near impossible.