Been there. Reason I didnt is because other people would bear the shit if I did. Im in a much better place at the moment but I felt exactly the way ypu do about the world.

There is a fuckload of propaganda, and a lot of it is meant to make you lose hope at ever seeing the system change. That makes the opinion that things can and might improve and you are going to be a part of it, no matter how small the most radical thing of all.

Genuinely what helped me through it was volunteering. Everything is shit wall to wall BUT this one tiny thing is better than it was because of me. Its a sustaining feeling for sure.

Keep hanging in there for the ones you love, and the ones that love you.

Id say quite a few Twilight Zone episodes had endings that were better than the mystery. But of course, there were just as many episodes where the opposite was true.

I was genuinely convinced they offered 10gig service in some markets. Doesn’t surprise me that its all marketing nonsense.

Just a tip for anyone who wants to know, if you have Comcast business internet they’ll tell you you have to use their modem but, you can swap it out with a 3rd patty modem and use the live chat service to get it activated. Then you can send back their modem for free at a ups store. Every salesperson will tell you its not possible but it absolutely is.

I didn’t realize it was that recent of an addition to the NEC. Weve only lived in super old houses where everything was always needing completely redone. I was usually replacing 2 conductor and cloth-jacketed stuff everywhere.

That was around 2012 and I remember the electrician we hired at the time mentioned it being a thing so that makes sense.

Current national electrical code in the US (since the 1980s) is a neutral in every switch box. Before then a switch loop was allowed so you see a lot of older construction with those.

You also see newer construction with those where Uncle Dave™ decided it was easier to only have to run a wire down from the light rather than fish it up through the crawlspace, NEC be damned.

Our claim we got all up front but that is all good info to know. Thanks!

Just had our roof and siding redone after hail damage. We were told that the exterior insulation built into the siding was minimal and not worth the extra cost for the benefit. If you already have it and it just needs repaired that’s a different story.

From what we could tell, the main difference between exterior contractors was the brand of shingles and siding they use and how they structure their quotes. The job is pretty much the job other than if you choose to do different types of siding on different parts of the house.

We chose our contractor based on someone else we know that had good experience with them and them being local to us in case we had any issues or wanted to make a warranty claim (they offered a 5 year workmanship guarantee). Pretty much all roofing people also do siding. Most do windows too. Our guy did windows, roofing, siding, insulation and gutters despite only having “roof” in his business name.

Just get 3 quotes and see who you like. Also, if you are doing anything through an insurance company, DO NOT sign anything from an exterior contractor to let them negotiate with the insurance company on your behalf. If they came door to door, that’s often something they will ask for. Just assume that most of those door-to-door folks are in the same category as ambulance-chasing lawyers and don’t trust them at all.

Also, if you are going through insurance and the contractor wants to see your claim, remove all dollar amounts from the claim before you share it. Let them give a quote based on what they value the job at rather than based on how much money they know for a fact you have.

Also also, it’s illegal in a lot of jurisdictions, if not all, for a contractor to tell you that they will reimburse or refund the amount of an insurance deductible if you make a claim or if you choose them to do the work. So if any of them said that it’s immediately shady if not downright illegal.

Connected a Samsung smart TV to my network when we first got it. The thing damn-near crashed my pi-hole asking for so many ad/tracking domains. Factory reset it later that same day. I think my % of requests blocked went from 15% to 68% in just the 3 hours or so the Smart TV was connected.

I switched to Delta Icons, also open source also on F-Droid. They aren’t as minimalist but they’re neat and flat and pastel.

Funny you mentioned articons. I have actually had a lot fewer stability problems when I switched away from articons.

Dope Wars Classic. The best modern recreation of the TI Calculator/Palm Pilot game Drugwar.

Still awesome to play to this day.

Kiss is exactly what I want in a launcher. I use it but it seems to crash a lot and/or fail to run the search properly or render my icons.

Have you noticed that at all? It’s happened across 2 phones for me but I may be unlucky or doing something wrong.

I think it’s amazing when done right.

But

Almost every time I’ve been to a 3d showing they have the screen adjusted wrong or in the wrong aspect ratio and it messes everything up.

I have a buddy with a home theater and a 3d projector with synchronized LCD glasses and 3d blu rays in that context are great.

Not sure if this is what you mean but if all the plugs are on their own circuit you can just just turn them all off in your breaker box by flipping the switch on the breaker.

Most boxes I’ve seem have a place to put a padlock for extra security too