agent_flounder @ agent_flounder @lemmy.one

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2 yr. ago

As a former customer this doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Our neighborhood and its twisted pair is 50 years old. I had DSL from the moment it first became available, and over time they upgraded the speeds. I have been WFH since 2006.

During that time I had had multiple cases of DSL going down and in many cases a new modem cured it.

But suddenly, during the Pandemic, the modem started losing its link 1-5 times a day every day. Totally unacceptable. I called multiple times. They came out multiple times. They weren't able to find a problem on their end even after multiple visits and we had eliminated the problem being on my end.

It's like nobody had any ownership of the issue or any sense of duty to proactively troubleshoot the problem to resolution. They almost treated every call as an isolated momentary issue despite having the prior info and me relaying it. They would just come out, do a line test, and when everything looked ok, they would shrug and leave. And the problems would continue as before.

Perhaps it was an intermittent hardware fault in the CO. Perhaps it was just old copper they were unwilling to spend any money on upgrading. I found I wasn't alone. A few others had the same issue in the neighborhood too.

I'm on brand new fiber now with a different provider and reliability is orders of magnitude better as one might expect.

But yeah, fuck CenturyLink.

I agree, and that is why the right-wing has sought to brainwash and isolate its followers, as any good cult does, to make intercession much more difficult, to prevent its faithful from questioning their errant beliefs.

I couldn't read #1 due to the paywall but #2 is a damned interesting read and I highly recommend others take the few minutes to do so.

Though I knew some of it already—like Ford's antisemitism, the partnering of corporations with fascist governments, the number of Russians who died on the eastern front^1—I was not previously aware of the degree and breadth of involvement of US corporations and the rich and powerful or their exploitation of pow and concentration camp labor in germany. Fucking hell.

Appreciate the sources and will add #2 to my thought processes and read the others when I get time.

Somewhat related, I found interesting Kendi's assertion that capitalism and slavery were inextricably (or maybe intrinsically) linked from the beginning in the colonies that became the USA. That exploitation of blacks was interwoven into the economies, particularly the south. No doubt you're well aware but other readers may find this an interesting bit to chew on. Capitalism is fundamentally about exploiting natural and human resources. I maintain that if it were legal, corporations would happily revert to slavery if it were legal again — as evidenced in #2 with GM making use of free concentration camp labor.

All that said, I think it is disingenuous to generalize the claim that communism is the bulwark against fascism without acknowledging how many Stalin put to death. So fascism was defeated, concentration camps closed and their prisoners freed. What was the bulwark against Stalin's purges? To contrast the USSR with Nazi Germany and throwing about the term totalitarian with no mention of the type of power Stalin held, I mean, come on. While it does not detract from the ease with which liberal democracy can and has devolved into fascism, it very much calls into question the general conclusions stated about communism as some ideal.

Fascism is a manifestation of human nature. Not all humans but a percentage that are more tribalistic, lacking empathy, preferring social hierarchy to egalitarianism, more prone to fear of the other due to isolation and ignorance. It is a natural evolution of conservatism. But authoritarianism, a key piece of fascism, is always a problem because too many humans have a bent to that power structure.

My thoughts on all this are always forming and evolving. But that's where my head is at right now.

Would be nice if he would state the obvious: that the GOP has embraced white supremacy (for the last 50 years), now very much overtly, and its leaders regularly incite violence and espouse intolerance and that the solution isn't to compromise with them or appease them but to beat them back (politically) into the shadows.

Pass on the afternoon tea...

Lol yeah They haven't been seriously trying to work with anyone since before Newt Gingrich.

PS as an experiment I once tried using a dollar store soldering iron... Cheap POS. No temp control. As long as I used a brass sponge it was easy to use.

My tips for solder gear are

• get temp control
• get one with easily swapped tips... Of an industry standard size. It's super helpful to have multiple tip sizes
• clean your tip with brass sponge!!!^1
• cheat mode: use liquid solder flux, Kester 2331 ZX
• follow Sparkfun's soldering tutorial.

1 I taught a bunch of elementary kids how to solder. We only had water sponges and within minutes nobody could solder right. I had one brass sponge and it made instant difference. Now the tip could actually conduct heat properly. It is seriously an unexpected total game changer.

As for the brand... Whatever Sparkfun or Adafruit is selling is legit but more budget friendly. I took a look and Sparkfun has some good options from Weller.

I got a Weller WS81. It's been good except the first wand didn't like too much side pressure (user error really). Otherwise it's been totally solid for years. They cost a lot less when I got it. Yikes. Get the cheaper WE1010 or the other red one.

An Aoyue might be ok. My Aoyue hot air rework station has been solid for the past several years assembling several hundred boards.

Hope this helps

Lol I feel ya. I ended up making and selling electronics kits to fund the hobby somewhat.

I have been using cheap vintage oscilloscopes the whole time.

Not sure what they go for now but $100 for a 20MHz scope and $200 for a 100MHz was what it was several years ago. Cheapest I got off a buddy for $40. I am still using that one.

Sometimes I fix broken ones and sell them. One time I got one that they thought was broken but turned out it was just the basic settings. I like trying different ones so I have gone through a dozen or so by now.

Now* that I think about it, o-scopes are a whole other hobby lol.

Anyway. Yeah by the time you get the test gear and enough sensors and microcontrollers and whatever it adds up.

Right now I'm working on a power supply design for a 50W class D stereo. Found out big toroidal transformers are not cheap. Oof. And enclosures big enough (especially if labeled "amplifier" or "stereo") are ridiculously spendy.

Not op, but ours is a Lelit Elizabeth dual boiler. Not cheap but I expect it to last like our Gaggia Espresso Deluxe did, about 15 years. I could've gotten away with a single boiler, truth be told but the ability to preinfuse (in a somewhat proper way) depends on it. Non negotiable was the PID temp control. Timed shots is nice to have.

But really I could've spent more on the grinder and less on the machine. The grinder I first got wasn't up to the task of espresso. Didn't have the range of settings and the grind quality was subpar. Had to get one a year later (grr) and settled on the Eureka Mignon Silencio. The flavor profile is so much clearer (this was obvious from the first shot I made with it) due to grind quality and it has stepless adjustment. So I can dial in the shot pretty well. Timed grind is nice too.

But damn what a lot of money for all this. Still worth it. It's not much over 10-15 y. And it pays for itself quickly. I can have an espresso drink every day that is far better than many places offer and it costs significantly less even for the super expensive, fancy beans.

So true! Even two diy raised beds ended up costing quite a bit. Lumber is not cheap. Neither was garden soil. Buying perennial plants costs a freaking fortune. I am going to try for seeds for next year. Plus some bulbs. For vegetables, I need to learn how to grow tomatoes from seed. Of course that requires grow lights and such.

I'm pretty sure the reverse is true.

There are some differences in the details of each denominations beliefs enough to mark some Christians as not real Christians. If only God could just make an announcement over the PA to clear things up...

Related: How many denominations only allow their own denomination to take Communion?

Absolutely agree. I am certain ifwe're real and appeared in person and spouted half the stuff attributed to him in the gospel they would call him "woke" too.

What if you tell your crush they need to love you or you will throw them in a lake of fire to suffer for eternity while you enjoy sniffing the smoke?

That seems abusive. And maybe somewhat unhinged.

Yeah it seems ridiculous now that I've deconverted and can finally look at this critically from the outside. It would be like raising a kid by leaving them a letter. If the god existed surely they would have the bright idea to drop some updated material every few decades and maybe make the occasional clarifying announcement to humanity.

Having a collection of religious texts, physically recorded by human hands, that provide information about the religion is a feature consistent with any religion that has a human-fabricated deity. Coincidentally, it is also a feature of every major religion. 🤔

Can't wait for season 10 to drop.

But seriously, March is going to be epic indeed if the trial dates remain unchanged. May have to resub to some of the news outlets I dropped this year so I can get multiple news sources for each fascinating development.

Yeah. Right there with ya. It's genuinely horrifying (to sane people) what a few decades of mind rotting propaganda from right wing media can accomplish.

He has a diehard fan base because he appeals to that fan base because of what he says and does.

Most if not all of those folks long ago wrote off any media that doesn't align with their worldview. They don't go to Huffpost or even NPR for info they go to Fox or even OANN or similar. They also tend not to be very skilled at critical thinking in reviewing the sources of their information. So they don't get multiple perspectives, just one carefully curated one from a much less trustworthy source.

Anyone who between 2015 and 2020 was getting their news from an array of relatively trustworthy sources with a range of biases and who also digs for audio/video clips of quotes in full context, corroborating stories, additional details, and source documents is someone who has seen sufficient quantity and quality of evidence. That evidence includes Trump saying things, making decisions, and taking actions that are consistent with being bigoted against minorities, women, disabled people, and so forth.

That doesn't make him worse than Hitler since he hasn't exterminated millions of people so far.

Anyone who thinks the press demonized him isn't very good at forming evidence-based beliefs and probably needs to work hard on that so they will no longer be grifted endlessly.

Thing is, federal govt can't just waltz in and take over state govt. That's now how it works. And probably with good reason. Imagine if the GOP could take over at the federal level and force states like Colorado to ban abortion (which yes wouldn't be a problem if we had codified abortion protection into law at the federal level and also hadn't had GOP denying Obama a SCOTUS appointment ), or banning same sex marriage or myriad other things.

As well as LGBTQ people, and anyone else in the "out group".