MystikIncarnate

joined 1 year ago
[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I had multiple wired access points in a rental apartment with high wife approval factor by running cables in cup hooks along the ceiling lines. They self-tap into the wall and leave little more damage than would be caused by hanging a picture. I put a hook every 18 or so inches for support, and ran a cable under a door, up the door frame, down a hallway and into the living room (from a bedroom where we had the network gear). From there, I only had to mount the access point and connect everything. The cables were always out of the way, and I used white cables to help hide them against the walls. It wasn't perfect, but the limits of renting are a bit limiting.

I only had two in that place, which was plenty, and we never had bandwidth issues accessing the internet from the wifi.

The fact is, nobody is building homes with wireless access points in mind. Whether rentals, condos, or new homes, they don't have access point hookups. Many are now being wired with Ethernet in the walls, but nothing in the ceiling. A skilled wireless engineer can easily take a floorplan and build a wireless design with access points in ideal locations for maximum coverage and speed. Simply doing this pre-work and installing ethernet in the ceiling at these locations, is all that is required, yet, I have yet to see any builder do it. The same can be done to retrofit rentals as people vacate units and updates/renovations are done, yet, nobody is doing it.

Those that own their home need only to find placements and pay someone to wire them in. The whole thing only needs to be done once, ever, and the locations should be fine for use for the long term.

Fact is, neither builders, nor property owners, nor homeowners seem to have any interest in the practice. The only time I have personally seen or known of any location that is properly wired for wifi, is when someone has hired such wires to be custom installed. If it was done by default, rather than as an afterthought, retrofit or renovation, then it may be more common that people pursue such solutions. The price problem is another major hurdle, though I stand by the analysis of people paying literally several thousand dollars on internet access from an ISP, compared to a few hundred at most for a router during the same timespan (usually 1-3 years). IMO, that's a bit like paying $50,000 over 10 years for access to the highway, but never buying a car worth more than $1000. It's silly.

My main point is, solutions to these problems exist, but people simply won't pay more than a few months worth of ISP fees for their wifi hardware, then they expect it to perform well and last for many years. They will turn a blind eye to the environmental issues that plague them and instead blame everything on lackluster devices that underperform that they will continue to refuse to pay a reasonable amount to actually get quality access equipment.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 15 points 10 months ago (9 children)

I work with WiFi all the time and let me tell you that after looking at usage graphs for what feels like forever, you don't need 1Gbps WiFi.

Most clients aren't averaging 50Mbps, nevermind 500-1000. What you want is consistent wifi. Something that doesn't show down because you dumped everything and the kitchen sink onto it. There's a lot of good ways to ensure this and nobody wants to pay for it.

Simply put, dumping 30-50 client devices, between cellphones, tablets, laptops, TVs, gaming consoles, IoT things (like smart lightbulbs, fridges, etc), and in more cases than I'd like to admit, desktops... Onto a single multifunction wireless router, with little more than dual band WiFi, is generally going to suck.

I usually hear a chorus of responses to this because people don't really put together that their smart watch, Alexa, smart smoke detectors and thermostats, all count as wifi devices. It usually doesn't make a huge difference how much each device is actually using the wifi, the fact that all of them are connected at the same time is, in and of itself, a problem with only a single access point where that contact can be made.... Dual band or not.

I don't consider mesh solutions to be solving the core issue since all of the client traffic needs to end up at a single device with all the same problems. The fact that they get filtered through what is essentially, fancy repeaters, isn't super relevant. The problem still exists. But if you suggest an infrastructure network with multiple wired access points, people generally take one look at the price, then leave and go buy the latest night hawk from Netgear at the nearest electronics store and put it out of their mind, since it's "good enough" (which it isn't, in the current WiFi climate).

I want people to have better wifi, but I can't save you all from yourselves. Now the IEEE is taking on the job, I suppose. Trying to "fix" wifi because most people can't be arsed to install a reasonable solution for what they actually need. They'd rather spend literally thousands of dollars a year on fast internet service that they don't need and can't use because it's all getting filtered through their sub $300 network that they've had (or will have) for two+ years, and then have the gall to complain that their wifi sucks, and they don't get it because they're paying $100+ a month for their fancy gigabit or multi-gigabit internet connection.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yes. Absolutely. Starting again at any young age with the knowledge I have now would be amazing. Getting in on the Bitcoin bandwagon early, when you could mine multiple Bitcoin a day on little more than a core 2 duo CPU, and invest into stocks that I know will explode long before they do when they're at an all time low.

Financially, I'd be far better off.

Also, avoiding mistakes of taking courses and getting diplomas that don't matter and mostly just wasted time on my journey, or skipping the multiple years between highschool and college where I worked menial jobs.

I also met my SO through a video game so as long as I take an active role in that community in the same way, around the same timeframe I'll find them again.... And I can skip all the pointless and ultimately degrading and emotionally damaging relationships along the way.

I could experience the carefree fun of not having to worry about bills or payments and just live... Later, when Bitcoin explodes in value, cash in and buy a nice house....

Who wouldn't want that?

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 15 points 10 months ago

I want to sympathize with this since about the only asset worth anything from my boomer father when he died was what remained of good savings after selling his house.

The short version is that he got Alzheimer's, and we were forced to put him into a care facility. We sold off his house and dumped the money into a trust account so his power of attorney could use it for his needs (mainly paying for equipment and everything with regards to his failing health and the long term care facility). He was pretty smart with money but when the remainder of the funds from his house being sold were divided among his direct descendants, we were looking at 30-40k each.

My brother and I went in on a house together with the money and after the down payment, there wasn't much left, and now we each have about $2300 a month in mortgage payments instead of rent. Predictably, the house needs some pretty serious work, and we've been trying to tackle what we can on our own. The only real benefit we got from all this is that in 25 years or so, we won't have to pay the mortgage anymore, and the mortgage won't really increase over time; so we're kind of fixed in terms of rent increases.

We're considering this our "forever home" because we don't really want to move again and because we're going to do everything we can to make it ours. It has enough space to do that though some areas need a lot of work to get them where we want them.

It's just sad that his entire life of working and earning money and saving, being the penny pincher he was, only amounted to around $150k. Three siblings and lawyers fees later and we have to pool our inheritance to make enough cash to put a down payment on a house.

There's a lot of other contributing factors, which I won't get into here, but that's just so sad to me.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 33 points 10 months ago (2 children)

My perspective on this after all my experiences over the past three years or so, working at three different jobs that service hundreds of customer sites and thousands of professional workers, is simply: forcing either work from office, work from home, or a combination of both (aka hybrid), is the wrong move. Your best talent will walk of you force them to do something that they don't want to do. I have seen coworkers and users alike, find new jobs both when forced to WFH and RTO and even with hybrid.

The take away is, work should be flexible. It should be where the workers are most effectively able to complete their duties. If that's the office, workers should have the ability to do that. If that's at home, they should be able to do that. If it's some combination of home/office, again, they should be able to do that.

If I've learned only one thing about work over the pandemic and this "post pandemic" hell, it's that above all, people want to be able to make that choice for themselves. Any worker worth employing is going to be productive regardless of their location, and for short durations, workers can accept working from home or the office or whatever, even if it's not their preference (eg, the 2020/1 lockdowns). A bad worker will be able to find ways to look busy will while not doing work regardless of if they're working remotely or not, though, in my experience most workers just want to put in the effort, and get paid, and they do. Those that are there to do as little as possible and collect a paycheck are actually pretty rare. People want to work. Giving them the option of choosing where and when to do that is empowering and beneficial to their attitude and work ethic; not to mention, it's also beneficial to their mental health.

Simply, forcing them into either working from home, or the office, or both via "hybrid" is going to have at least a few, wanting to walk.

We have the technology to support both styles of work and taking that choice away from workers will only serve to make those that want the opposite, disgruntled. If you value your workers, then let them choose.

Bluntly, given what I've seen from business owners over the same three+ year time period, they don't care enough about workers to make them happy. It demonstrates a complete lack of shits given about what works want.

If you're a business owner and you have any consideration for those you employ, give them the choice and you will be rewarded with more work, and better work done by those you employ. Anyone who forces the issue, one way or the other, will have some that are happy and some that are very unhappy about it. Choose wisely.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

That's fair. The feelings are different but similar, the desire to act is still there and the desired act is different due to context and that's all appropriate IMO.

Thanks for the reply. Personally, I don't like people in general, so when I socialize I usually stick to private events with friends. Going out in public is a problem; like when I have to go to the grocery store or something. I'm not organized enough to use grocery delivery even though it's available in my geographical area; so I need to go out every so often and people are the worst.

I don't have the same hatred and rage about it, but I certainly understand that someone could be inspired to those emotions. I'm inspired to different emotions from different triggers, but the general emotional function is the same.

Have a wonderful day.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

No judgement, just curious: I know it's more rare, but do you get the same visceral reaction to grown people throwing immature temper tantrums as well? Or is it limited to just the very young?

I just want to understand if this is more of a distaste for immaturity or if it's only the immaturity of the immature that's giving you that feeling.

I'm no fan of kids, but I don't get this kind of rage myself. I can dismiss myself from the situation long before I struggle with these kinds of feelings.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

This comment made me smile, thanks!

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 5 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Imagine, if you will, being so boring that you have to pick fights about how people word things.

Listen, he said "refugees" and maybe that wasn't the right word. But you know what? Both you and I both understood what they meant by that.

The point of language... any language is to portray ideas between different people. In that context, OP did a fantastic job of that. we understood. Job done.

Instead of providing any discussion of any value or merit, and apparently having the personality of wet cardboard, you chose to critique his word choice on how to describe those displaced by the issue.

Nobody was confused. Nobody is going to conflate the struggles of actual refugees with the inconvenience of feddit being unavailable. There's no confusion here. Fighting to reclaim the word "refugee" when nobody gives any shits about it (except you apparently), is certainly not going to win you any awards. I promise that refugees care less about what they're called, or who appropriates the term for inappropriate uses, and they care more about migrating to a country where they will be safe from harm.

Nobody is standing up and being proud of their refugee status, demanding that we treat their term with more respect.... I know refugees, and I would think that all of them would have preferred to not have been forced to become one. Nobody chooses to be a refugee, you do it because you're scared for your life. Scared of your neighbors, government, and national authorities. Nobody wants that.

I know that refugees are proud of the fact that they now live in a place that's not like the place that they left, but I have yet to meet one that's proud that they had to flee.

I'm pretty sure they couldn't possibly give less of a shit about someone misusing the term "refugee".

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The joys of federation.

If you're logged in on kbin, looking at a community on feddit while feddit is down, then in all likelihood, kbin simply holds the most recent copy of feddit, and it's only showing you what it already has.

This is kind of the root of federation. Different, but the same.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 79 points 11 months ago (22 children)

Giving people money improves their quality of life?

Who would have guessed?

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago

So, I'm connected to a fancy computer called a server, and so are you, but we're connected to different servers. The reason we can still talk is that despite being on different servers run by different people, those people have made it so that the servers can share what I say with you, and what you say with me.

Federation is simply a fancy term for an agreement to share something. In this case, it's our text posts.

There are other kinds of federation, but that's not important to Lemmy. Since you asked specifically about Lemmy, I'll leave it at that.

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