@jaredbusch said in Heavy Duty Staple for UTP cable:

Or step all the way to NM staples.

NM staples are the way to go. They last forever and are really easy to install.

@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:

@coliver said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:

@quixoticjeremy said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:

@coliver said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:

@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:

@penguinwrangler said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:

In Missouri, we have what is called the A+ program. HS kids go through a program and have to meet certain requirements. Once they do, their first two years of college at a community college is free. My kids are doing this.

SUNY (State University of NY) is all free now, except for the extremely wealthy, I'm told. It is a new program, so I know basically nothing about it. And SUNY is one of the top college names in the world.

It's free for the low end of the income bracket. There are a number of stipulation that go along with the excelsior scholarship.

Actually as someone who lives here, it's not just simply the low end, it is a large portion of the populace that seems to be receiving it. Quite a few of my friends have gone back to or are attending college purely because of this program, none of them being exceedingly poor.

I live just a few hours south of you and work in the system. It's a bit more far reaching then what I've said yes. It's a step in the right direction but it's baby step. It effects households under a combined income of $100,000. So it's generally low-mid to lower income. The nice thing for the state, and tax payers, is that it takes effect after all other grants take effect. It will only cover 6,470$ per semester... Which is really nice for us small and community schools.

That's pretty shitty that they consider combined income. So a single person making tons of money can go to school for free, but a couple with kids making really low income both working trying to make ends meet have to pay to go to school. Typical.

Pretty much yes. Income stipulations don't make a lot of sense, I know they did it to make it past the assembly. IIRC they are planning on removing that stipulation in the next 5 years.

@dustinb3403 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@coliver said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Weren't we talking about doing a ML group?

@QuixoticJeremy was talking about a MangoMeet here in Rochester, and we keep letting it drop off. We might need some liquid encouragement from @Minion-Queen

I mean... if it was a monthly game and I had a place to crash... that's really not that far of a drive.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@coliver said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Weren't we talking about doing a ML group?

In which city?

Online.

@magicmarker said in CrashPlan Getting Out of the Home Backup Business:

@coliver What software client are you using to upload data to Backblaze? I'm only seeing this command-line tool that I don't want to use.

https://secure.backblaze.com/download.htm

It's a client that sits on the local machine. Idiot proof configuration. I walked my mom through it.

Weren't we talking about doing a ML group?

@jaredbusch said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

@dashrender said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

@dustinb3403 said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

@coliver said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

@dustinb3403 said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

@coliver said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

Could they have invested in their infrastructure to accommodate these new users? Why would they? People are going to buy their services regardless.

This part is what the FCC should be looking at and saying. . . well hell it's just good business sense. Also lets allow them to provide faster service for the things we provide in full 4K resolution!

I don't really see that as the FCC's role in this though. They shouldn't mandate investment or good business practices. They should be there specifically to protect the consumer and ensure that companies don't overstep competitive boundaries.

You could argue that not investing in infrastructure hurts the consumer, I would agree with that, but I think that goes outside the scope of the FCC's mandate.

The FCC is actively going out of their way in an attempt to hurt the consumer with this entire fiasco. I get your point, it's a business choice to do so.

However it does hurt consumers who own devices with higher resolution devices and are paying for subscriptions with 1080P or higher quality. Because they are forcibly denied access to the quality they are subscribed to, by Verizon..

I'm not sure how I really feel about this. Unlike terrestrial carriers, you don't typically pay for an amount of bandwidth from a cellular carrier. Before the unlimited plans, you paid for a data cap plan. You used to be able to burn through that cap as fast as their network would allow with no throttling. Eventually throttling started even on those cap plans. Now with "unlimited" data plans, they are doing what terrestrial carriers have been doing forever - bandwidth caps.

Cox cable used to give me unlimited data at a max rate of 50 Mb/s. Of course, they are now taking a page out of cellular carriers playbooks and capping data.

The Verizon plan is still unlimited data, but at the throughput they rate you at. But that's not even true, because they also have a cap rate 22 GB after which they can lower your throughput to near unusable levels.

I would love to just buy a pipe that is x throughput for an entire billing period, and I just pay y for it. Otherwise get your kids off my lawn. ;)

WTF. Of course you pay for an amount of bandwidth from cellular carriers. Unlimited plans have not existed for years until the recent come back of unlimited but speed capped after a certain amount of usage. it was terrestrial carriers that had no bandwidth caps until recently. Now Comcast has a 1TB cap on throughput and once you hit it you pay overage. On the other hand, Cellular providers now simply throttle you down without charging extra once you hit their cap.You have the option to pay more for high speed again.

The Verizon plan you mention is not "still". It is their new version of unlimited. The old legacy unlimited plans that some people cling to have not been offered in forever.

Comcast has been "demoing" data caps for over a decade. But you're right on all other counts.

@travisdh1 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@eddiejennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Having to delay a meeting because our conference room computer never did it's restart for Windows updates, which I discovered upon restarting it for a different issue. :(

The joys of OS issues.

Linux has it's quirks, but it's generally not unexpectedly taking lots of time to install updates randomly when rebooting.

You don't even have to reboot if you're using something like KSplice.

@minion-queen said in Upgrade your outdated hardware with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance:

@coliver said in Upgrade your outdated hardware with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance:

@tim_g said in Upgrade your outdated hardware with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance:

No public pricing means they try to squeeze out as much as possible on a per-customer basis. I'm guessing heavy commission based sales.

That's unfortunate.

GroveMarketPlace is reselling StarWind we can get you pricing. Just email me [email protected]

Just really looking for a generalized pricing per node or per set. Not anything specific. Would be nice to have an idea where these would fall compared to other solutions we've looked at in the past.

@dashrender said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

@coliver said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

@dustinb3403 said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

@coliver said in FCC Net Neutrality Insanity Continues:

Could they have invested in their infrastructure to accommodate these new users? Why would they? People are going to buy their services regardless.

This part is what the FCC should be looking at and saying. . . well hell it's just good business sense. Also lets allow them to provide faster service for the things we provide in full 4K resolution!

I don't really see that as the FCC's role in this though. They shouldn't mandate investment or good business practices. They should be there specifically to protect the consumer and ensure that companies don't overstep competitive boundaries.

You could argue that not investing in infrastructure hurts the consumer, I would agree with that, but I think that goes outside the scope of the FCC's mandate.

To that end, why mandate service at all? Frankly I'm mostly dumbfounded that telephone service was/is a requirement to all people, even in remote rural areas. Ultimately I do understand the good for the world aspect.. but ....

That's the original mandate of the FCC, enacted by congress.

make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.