OnMyPhone

So far the only issues I've had with USB C is that I had to buy a Nintendo USB C cable to charge my switch and a separate USB C cable wouldn't charge my Pixel. It did work with an external hard drive so I know the cable wasn't completely broken.

I know there's other cables from some brands that might have worked, but after the 3rd one that wouldn't work for my switch I went for Nintendo.

I don't have a lot of USB C devices yet, so I'm hoping they get things ironed out.

I wish more people thought like this.

I worked for one of those poorer counties, and money was 100% the issue every department had every single year.

The highway dept's budget shrank before it would even get approved by the board. One of the first things the Finance Dept would ask is what roads absolutely cannot wait until next year.

If they spent a lot of money to make one road good for 10+ years, then they wouldn't be able to do anything to the roads that were actually a hazard for drivers.

So they would only get enough money to band-aide some roads. Now the situation is that it's better to band-aid a road for a year or maybe two than it is to not have any money to do anything to the road.

(We have a lot of bad roads, have cold winters usually and deal with farmers / truck drivers that can't read the weight limits on the roads)

"Road maintenance is expensive..."

You hit the nail on the head. I worked for a poor local government. The highway department was always the first on the chopping block, not because their issues weren't important, but because they were the only department with a significant amount of money.

The leadership here is another issue entirely, but every county in this area all had issues with money and the first thing that the board members asked was what roads could wait until next year.

The highway dept wanted to fix the roads so that they wouldn't need maintenance every few years, but they couldn't afford to do it to more than one road. So even though it is much worse band-aiding the roads that need work, it's better than not being able to do any work with them.

Then the cycle continues the next year.

Anytime I read posts like that, I just assume they have never been to a place that requires a car to get somewhere within a decent amount of time or it's been so long that they've forgotten.

Yeah, I could get an e-bike, I just have to make 5x+ the trips to the store since I doubt it could hold what I can get in 1 trip now. How would I drive 20 miles one way to work in the winter when there is zero public transportation here? There's no bike lanes out here, and taking an e-bike on the road will eventually get you killed, that's if you can stand driving 40 miles round trip in the snow / rain 5 days of the week.

I guess I can move, (as been suggested before lol) but now there's a lot of new problems with that that an e-bike won't touch.

It just isn't feasible for most people yet. Hopefully sometime soon, but definitely not right now.

I had to prepare reports and such for the board to read before. I worked my ass off on them but never saw anyone actually reading them or even talking about them.

So I printed off random "techy" stuff and some cat pictures online and gave it to them to see if they even opened the document up. To this day they never noticed anything and I did that for 2 years before I left. I still did what I could at my job, but the time spent on those reports dropped to nothing after my test.

The was government though, but I have seen the same thing at many schools I worked at before.

Not OP, but I have had the freezer trick work more times than not. It's a last case type of deal, but when there's nothing to lose try it. Just make sure the drive is sealed up nicely.

You ever try OpenRA? http://www.openra.net/

I've used it on Windows 7 and OS X and it's worked out pretty well. I haven't had much time to play it beyond a few quick matches though.

kiwifarms?

not a message board though, but a forum.

Several of the Dr's and specialists in the US write down different procedures than what is done. I don't think it's malicious (at least to the patient), but I think it's mainly to avoid issues with insurance companies not covering stuff. I can see how this isn't kosher with many people though.

I have some weird issues that no one can seem to figure out, so when I go to the Dr's, they'll sometimes take the shotgun approach. If they know that the insurance company is going to give me flak for something, the Dr's put down whatever is needed for insurance to cover it.

One example was when I felt a pop in my jaw after eating something. Within a few minutes it hurt so bad that I passed out from the pain, and woke up an hour or so later. I went to the Dr's and had them do what they do. They did a bunch of tests and the Dr told me that he had to put down that I have "head pains" instead of "jaw pains" otherwise insurance wouldn't cover it.

I'm not huge on the idea and I'm sure I'm paying for it in one way or another. It is much better than paying thousands out of pocket 5+ times a year.

"I also wonder that's a paid feature that businesses can use?"

I swear that I've heard about several different people paying Yelp to "remove" (or whatever term they called it) negative reviews on their site. This was a few years ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was still a thing.

I spent a bit too long on playing with tc a while ago. The best I could get it was to limit each person's download speeds from the one internet connection we had.

I'm with you on tc having the worst interface and documentation that I have seen from a command before. I spent maybe a few days total on it then gave up because I figured if there isn't much documentation on it, it isn't worth figuring out.

I've used Mullvad on and off for years. Still my go to when I need it.

"I had a Nexus phone on Fi that -- while I was holding it in my hand texting -- it went black and never turned on again, for no reason. I assumed the battery died -- even though the UI displayed that I had most of my battery still. No, it completely bricked. Coincidentally and non-conspiratorially, it might've been ~2 weeks after my 1-year warranty expired. But after the whole iPhone planned obsolescence thing, I was skeptical."

I had the same exact issue with my Pixel XL. I did buy it used, so yeah I know. I just set the phone down, it looked like it froze and rebooted, but the screen just turned off and that was it. That was a month after the warranty expired. I'm on my second one, so we'll see how this goes.

"I'm also unable to see a list of my contacts filtered by who is online in the app, which I consider to be as basic as it gets."

It still boggles my mind that someone thought this is a good thing to do.

I read on a KB on MS site when I was trying to figure out how to change that, and it said to see if someone is online send them a message first. I'm paraphrasing of course, but I couldn't believe that that was coming from MS about something so simple as trying to figure out who is online.

My dad is a veteran and now uses the VA for everything he can now.

His first experiences weren't that great, but you could easily tell it was because they were understaffed and underfunded.

Once they got to the point where he could start seeing specialists and whatnot, everything since then was a breeze.

He had a surgery on his stomach. It wasn't life threatening, but he was in some pain. The VA was able to get him an appointment with a Dr. and schedule the surgery within a few days to a week or so.

He also needed eye surgery. This one he had to wait for his eye to get to a certain point before surgery. The VA was able to get him to see an eye Dr the same day he went in for something else. Then less than a month later he was going to go in for surgery but something came up so he had to have it rescheduled. They were able to reschedule the surgery for the following week.

I would consider this a success story. He was hesitant on getting the eye surgery because of costs that were told to him by the previous company, but the VA told him he would not be paying anything, and he didn't.

I've noticed this too.

I used to waste their time when I could, but now I just have to let it go to voicemail.

The best call I had was when they called at 9:30pm... saying I won a trip, and I just needed to give them my cc so they can verify I was 18+.

I talked to them like I was interested, and when they asked for my cc I told them i had to go find it quick.

I put the phone down and watched an episode of South Park and forgot they were on the line yet.

I get back and pick up the phone and tell them I just found the card. I start reading the information off of it, but using the wrong name, and numbers, etc.

He was so excited about it that he kept telling me about all the fun I was going to have. Then he got a sad tone and said the card was rejected. I acted surprised and asked him to read back to me what he had since I had no idea what I gave him.

It got rejected another time, so he suggests we call the number on the back to do a three way call with my cc company to figure out what is going on.

I give him an 800 number that my cousin and I found by accident when we were like 12. I read him a phone sex number. He started to dial it and all of a sudden I heard a recording of some lady moaning. He immediately hung up and never called again.

I got into the habit of using a separate password for each site I use, except for the throwaway sites.

I have a method I use regardless if 2fa is an option or not.

I have a fairly secure password that I have memorized. Then for each site I pick something about it that I can remember to add on to the password.

For example if my current ebay password is: Pa$$w0rd the new one would be: Pa$$w0rdEb or EbPa$$w0rd Amazon would be: Pa$$w0rdam

That has helped a few people I know keep separate passwords for each site without having to go through a password manager. YMMV of course.

The way I look at it is if the sites DB gets dumped, at least the scripts will fail using the password on other sites, even if it's not the most secure password.

You're point about the phishing e-mails is spot on though. No amount of secure passwords will stop that

I hate it all, and would rather pay much more taxes if we had universal healthcare.

That aside, I had a few different people give me the following reason why this is acceptable to them. "Why should we pay any of our hard earned money to the government so some drug addict can get their fix?" "Why should I pay for single mothers who made bad decisions?" It is almost always other people making poor decisions or getting into poor situations that justify their choices on this type of stuff.

When you ask about parents who's kids can't get surgery, they reply in a similar fashion, "there's government programs for them, so I don't need to pay anymore taxes." They have never had to use one of these "wonderful" government programs. That's key to their thinking.

Try to tell them that it could be their kids that need a surgery they can't afford and it'll go something like, "well that's why we pay for insurance out of our pocket." They never stop to think about people who are in a bad situation.

There is NO getting through to some of these people until they need the help they refuse to pay for. I have seen one couple change their minds once their insurance refused to cover something for their kid. Immediately they were "raising awareness" for this type of stuff... but whatever at least they eventually came to.

So to answer your question, they aren't blind per se, as they see how stupid it is. They are however selfish as shit and don't care about anyone outside of their initial friends and family.

My story is sort of similar too.

Many years ago, I noticed my power bill was around $190 when it should have been closer to $120. I wasn't home for most of that month, and I know I turned off everything I could. I didn't even have the refrigerator running. I talked to my neighbors who had heat and everything on in their apartment and their bill was $110.

I called the power company who said there's nothing wrong and that I need to have someone "look at my apartment." I got another bill for $190, while everyone else's were low $100s. This went on for 6 months. My bills were always $190ish. I had a $190 bill near the end of spring when I just had my windows open for air.

I looked at the meters and found they replaced one meter, which happened to be mine. I called several times asking if they replaced it, that my bills were ridiculous for what I was doing and to look at it.

No word back on anything then my bills went from $190 a month to $15. So instead of saying anything, they just started to cut my bills down for what I overpaid. When I called asking why my bills were lower, they just said because I overpaid my previous months bills. My bills were around $15 a month for close to a year afterwards...

So stupid. They ended up discounting me for a few hundred more than I should have been, but I had to cut a few things out of my budget just to pay for something I wasn't using, but needed.

Seeing people glued to their phones while out somewhere social infuriates me to no end. If that's their thing, then so be it. At least they're usually quiet while doing it. But hearing them bitch about their shitty social life while not even looking up on their phone to look at the person across from them (who's usually on their phone too) boggles my mind.

I have noticed this happens more to younger people, but I have seen quite a fair share of older people doing the same thing.

The good thing about seeing this in public is that I feel like a jackass if I think about doing it. So I just leave my phone in my car or at home when I'm with someone.

Did you do any testing with a VPN?

When I was visiting someone in Atlanta GA, the speeds weren't good for what they advertised, but once I put on a VPN the speeds almost tripled.

They just have internet through Comcast too, so I was wondering if something was up.

I have a 2012 Macbook Pro that I hope lasts forever.

I upgraded everything in it I could though, CPU, RAM, screen, etc.

The biggest and best change I made to it was replacing the main HD with a nice SSD. Now it can run everything I need, except some games. I usually had 2-4 VMs running something throughout the work day.

I also took out the optical drive and replaced it with a OWC adapter and another SSD.

The last thing I do is back up everything I need, wipe and reinstall everything. I usually do this once a year or when needed, and it helps quite a bit with it feeling / acting slow.

(not sure if you can easily upgrade the hard drive or not though, but it made a world of difference for me)

I'm not who you're replaying to, but...

When I was learning how to lucid dream, one of the triggers that I used to tell I was in a dream was flipping a light switch on and off. When I saw nothing happened, I knew it was a dream. Another big one I use is looking at any words, numbers or clocks to see if they were legit, or random characters / garbage.

I started to "feel" what a lucid dream was because I would get some nightmares that would eventually wake me up. It felt real and I could remember everything about it (for a few minutes). The big ones always involved me falling from a building, and waking up once I hit the pavement.

Over time, I forced myself to try to mostly stay asleep during these nightmares. I remember falling from stuff, hitting the pavement, waking up, but keeping my eyes closed and trying to keep from waking up. It got to the point where I would "half" wake up, but still be in the nightmares. Then with some practice, I could do that to normal dreams too.

I can't really do it on demand, so it's more if I am having a crazy dream, I can usually snap out of it and fully control everything about it.

"However, for use as an antidepressant, 100-200mg (0.1-0.2g) twice a month is sufficient, so it shouldn’t be an issue. "

I will second that. A friend would use around that much and it would last almost 2 full weeks without feeling the need to take another 100mg. Once the 2 weeks hit though, he could feel his depression / anxiety coming back slowly.

Half gram would knock you out cold.

A better "close to k-hole" dose would be 100mg. At least based on our experiences 100mg would get some people in the hole, while it took some others 50mg - 100mg more.

I used to work with some detectives who told me this exact thing.

The "little tracking devices" helped them solve a lot more crimes than they ever dreamed of, but they said that it also requires a lot more paperwork, desk work, warrants, etc to do anything now. So even though it's easier, they have to jump through a lot more hoops to get the data.

They also said that that work is 90% of their jobs now. The other 10% is "non-it computer work."

It's a small local sheriff's dept (if that makes any difference).

I used to work with the local Sheriff's Dept doing IT stuff. The detectives said they were amazed at how much data they could get from phones / cell providers. It's helped solve so many crimes like bomb threats, abuse cases, and even some murders.

They also said that if someone was smart, they would just leave their phone at home, or somewhere else as an alibi and do whatever. Then they would have to go back to the drawing board which they admittedly said they haven't had to do in a long while.

One option might be to have the sniffing device setup with a hidden wireless network (of some sort).

Then when you walk around, sit in the food court eating, or if the device is close to the outside, sit somewhere out of sight of the cameras with a strong wifi antennae and grab whatever data.

Unless they have some "free" wifi that the device could hop on to send it to some server somewhere.

Using that and / or 4g would make it easier to find the device and, of course, the person though.

phew, I was hoping MAP wasn't going to come back to haunt me after all these years, haha.

If your application let students finish what they were doing without randomly crashing and losing everything, then it is leaps and bounds better than the MAP system.

The school had to extend the map testing by 2 weeks just because of how often it crashed and students had to retake it. My coworkers at other school districts in other states ran into the same exact issues. Then on Windows, it had to access a SMB share somewhere to dump data to a flat db... that would get corrupted sometimes when a students application froze up... haha. it was job security though.

I've been out of the edu game for a while now. I want to say it was the Map Testing system. The school district was using a web based system (something lightning? I can't remember) previously, but the state was mandating the use of MAP instead. The state didn't give the schools any options or much time to prepare for it either. The school district had 70+ schools. I spent a summer fixing / getting that stuff working. (still more fun than iPad deployments)

The app wasn't a universal binary at the time. Which would be fine if the PPC version worked with the PPC machines, and Intel worked with the Intel machines. haha.

*Edit The windows version did usually work without issues. The OS X version eventually worked once they redid the whole application.