Something Random

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,525
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Yup, but she has less control over policy here than the royalty of England (which is practically none), so it is more of a subject of conversation than a pivot for policy.
 

jtr1962

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 25, 2002
Messages
4,174
Location
Flushing, New York
Merc, that is true of just about anywhere else. The nordic countries, Denmark in particular, have some of the best social support systems in the world, so are quite concerned about people coming here to leech off of it or mess with their culture of personal responsibility for the collective good. It is amazing, and I love it, but it is a fragile thing that they want to protect. So: no simple student visas, no starting your own company, no retiring with your own source of income. You work for a Danish company, with a salary high enough that you won't depress the salaries of Danes, and you learn Danish and participate in the society while you do it (be active in community groups, etc). If you do all these things for 4 years you get a permanent residence card, if you do all these things for 8 years you get citizenship. Even marrying a Dane has restrictions where they basically have to post a bond, and if the relationship doesn't work out, they forfeit the bond to the state to make sure you aren't a leech on the system.
I'm curious what they would have against retiring in the country with your own source of income. I get all the other objections.
Plan B is The Netherlands. The DAFT treaty means that Americans can basically show up, start a company with minimal (a few grand) investment, and stay for 2 years. I can do that while learning more Danish and applying for work here until I make that work, or (Plan C) just retire to the med off Croatia and Greece on a sailboat.
The Netherlands has a great bike network, among other things.

If Trump gets a second term, I'm seriously considering leaving the country. No idea where I would go, although I'm leaning heavily towards the far east ( i.e. one of the megacities in China most likely ). I wouldn't want to go to a country where working for a local company is part of the deal. I'm 61 and was done working for other people by my late 20s. Not going back to that grind, ever.

In theory I can get citizenship in Italy since my great grandparents on my mother's side were citizens there at the time of my grandparent's birth.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,674
Location
USA
Yup, but she has less control over policy here than the royalty of England (which is practically none), so it is more of a subject of conversation than a pivot for policy.
Of course. I was just joking. You are still relatively young and have a varuiery of skills and options. Isn't your wife an NP? Does she parcrtic
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,741
Location
USA
I'm curious what they would have against retiring in the country with your own source of income. I get all the other objections.

The Netherlands has a great bike network, among other things.

If Trump gets a second term, I'm seriously considering leaving the country. No idea where I would go, although I'm leaning heavily towards the far east ( i.e. one of the megacities in China most likely ). I wouldn't want to go to a country where working for a local company is part of the deal. I'm 61 and was done working for other people by my late 20s. Not going back to that grind, ever.

In theory I can get citizenship in Italy since my great grandparents on my mother's side were citizens there at the time of my grandparent's birth.

Going to a China mega city as a reaction to a US presidential change seems a bit drastic, I'm curious what your thoughts are with this kind of change to China specifically. I feel like their government is worse off than here but maybe I'm missing something. I'm certainly no fan of him even being a presidential candidate let alone potentially the next president but you live in a fairly progressive democratic state already.
 

jtr1962

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 25, 2002
Messages
4,174
Location
Flushing, New York
Going to a China mega city as a reaction to a US presidential change seems a bit drastic, I'm curious what your thoughts are with this kind of change to China specifically. I feel like their government is worse off than here but maybe I'm missing something.
It boils down to where I'd feel comfortable. I'm a megacity person who gets around by walking, cycling, and public transit. I like big city life in general. Outside of NYC, there's no where in the US I'd really want to live. The closest analogue to NYC are Asian megacities like those in China, along with Tokyo and Seoul. I picked China because living in a neighborhood which is over 50% Asian, mostly Chinese, I'm familiar with their culture, food, and people. China has a great high-speed rail system, which is another huge plus in my book.

Honestly, their government isn't something I've given much thought to, although many of the things they restrict are stuff I wouldn't want to do anyway. Besides, ironically over the long term there are lots of pressures, internal and external, for China to become more free, with the US heading in the opposite direction. Trump has already said he'll be a dictator, but supposedly only on day one. I doubt that. If he and the GOP get control, they'll change laws so they can never be voted out, then turn the US into what they always wanted to, namely a Christian theocracy. If you think China is restrictive, try living under any brand of theocracy. You'll probably be thrown into jail for not going to church on Sunday under a GOP theocracy.
I'm certainly no fan of him even being a presidential candidate let alone potentially the next president but you live in a fairly progressive democratic state already.
Living in a fairly progressive democratic state might not be enough in Trump's America. Look at the GOP proposals in Congress to make abortion illegal nationally. They'll do the same with other progressive ideas they don't like if they get into control.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,598
Location
Eglin AFB Area
Website
sedrosken.xyz
The man has flat out admitted he's planning to become a dictator. I don't care if you think he was joking or he misunderstood the question. He seems to think it's cute to say he'd be a dictator for day one, but there's no telling where it'd actually end. With Manchin bowing out of the Senate, without some serious victories in the upcoming election, we're essentially looking at Trump and co. allowing for the creation of a Christian theocracy as long as they let him keep power and stay out of prison, which it seems they're more than happy to allow for.

I personally would be alright. I'm white, male and straight (enough) that I'd be left alone. It'd be friends and members of my family they'd be coming after, and that's what has me scared. I'm no great big fan of Biden's, but he's basically the option for preserving the nation. That said, I fully expect to be prevented from voting someway down here in Florida for the '24 election, whether it be by being purged from the voter rolls or some other mechanism, and even if I do manage to cast a vote I don't expect it to matter in the slightest here in this reddest of red counties. This is the county that re-elected Matt Gaetz. After he got dragged through the mud over the trafficking thing.

It won't stop me from trying, but I have no opinions of success or my vote mattering. If I could take the people I'm worried about with me when I went, I'd probably flee too in the face of another Trump presidency, but since I can't...

I still don't think I'd go to China, of all places. Canada? Sure. Australia or New Zealand? The immigration policy there is reportedly pretty strict for us burgers, but if they'd take me, I'd go. Any of the nordic countries, too. Potentially even South Korea or Japan if I could get myself over the language barrier.

I want to clarify that I'm only technically in Florida by choice -- the other option was continuing to spin my wheels in a shitty service-industry job in Kentucky. I don't think I'll ever own property here, nor do I really want to.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,599
Location
I am omnipresent
The issue in the US in this point is not Trump. The ongoing nonsense isn't going to stop with him, even if he is not reelected. The position of the republican party at this point is that the will of the people is not as important as their rule over the people, and they're fully willing to embrace ethnic and religious sectarianism to retain power. If there is a RELATIVELY peaceful election cycle and if non-Republicans retain control over at least one federal branch AND at least 1/3 of US state governments, things will probably continue in the same wobbly way they have been. I don't see the ship of conservative thought righting itself, so the matter become when Republicans either fully control all three branches and/or enough states fall such that they can form a new constitutional convention. I suspect this is statistically likely within a Gen-X lifetime, and those who cannot leave will find themselves in a Russian-style Kakistocarcy. I do not know what the outcome of that will be. I think the best hope is a fracture of the republic.

Europe isn't immune to this disease either, as far right parties have had major electoral wins there as well,

I do not have a great deal of hope for the future of much of anything at this point.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,598
Location
Eglin AFB Area
Website
sedrosken.xyz
From what I understand, Idaho just effectively made it illegal to carry out an abortion even in the event of it being medically necessary to save the mother's life. The letter of the law might not say as much, but the chilling effect this will have on doctor-patient decision-making is the point. This is how it starts.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Republic of Gilead.

Merc, I personally see the 'fractured republic' as a best-case scenario as well, but I highly doubt that by the time that becomes necessary, they'd be willing to let it go. I foresee a bloody, perhaps nuclear, civil war in such an eventuality.

I'm supposed to bring kids into this world? Ha. No, no I don't think I will.
 

jtr1962

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 25, 2002
Messages
4,174
Location
Flushing, New York
I think splitting the country into the two coasts, and middle America, would be the best outcome. Let them have their theocracy, so long as it doesn't come to where I live. I'll feel sorry for anyone who lives there, but hopefully they'll still be free to leave. It would be more than a bit hilarious if they get what they want, but when they do all the women and girls leave.

The world had enough problems even back when I was sed's age that I wouldn't have wanted to bring kids into it. Never liked kids much anyway. I would have been a horrible father.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,599
Location
I am omnipresent
The divide isn't coastal. It's urban vs rural. Our natural resources are all out in the flyover places and all our economic might is concentrated in our big cities. We can't have one without the other. For the union to fracture, we would have to figure out how to restructure debts and ownership of federal resources. Unfortunately, we can't just divide everything in half, either.

Pretending for a moment that we had a civil war, it would not be a matter of state secession. Big cities like Chicago, NYC, Columbus, Omaha and Austin would immediately be blockaded from arterial traffic via roads. A bunch of semis across the middle of 8-lane highways would do a high job of that. Sure, we could call out the National Guard or the army or whatever, but would those troops be willing to stare down Joe from Peoria when there's no declared war and anyway the guardsman went to high school with the guy? Planes would still work. Freight trains? Who knows. They're really easy to blockade as well. We wouldn't be having big battles with thousands of troops anywhere. We have an overarmed populace that's scattered all over hell and they know plenty of ways to make explosives. Cities are choke points and having a country this size engaged in guerilla war isn't going to work all that well for anyone on either side.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,674
Location
USA
Is there any chance of moving the political ranting posts into that thread about it?
 

fb

Storage is cool
Joined
Jan 31, 2003
Messages
710
Location
Östersund, Sweden
and you learn Danish
Man, this sounds impossible, even the poor danish children start talking later than others because they talk so strange. 🙂

Sweden and Norway is also nice, and Belgium also seems to be OK (besides Netherland). But your skills should be in high demand anywhere. I hope it sorts itself out soon.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,598
Location
Eglin AFB Area
Website
sedrosken.xyz
I'm replacing the SSD in my MBP (12,1) because I think the original might be dying, and I needed more space anyway. I have a 1TB m.2 drive arriving today and I already have the m.2 to proprietary whatever-connector adapter from Sintech. Supposedly I can't restore online using that drive, I'll need to use a Monterey install USB and install that way. Thankfully I read ahead and already have one prepared. Less thankfully I did the update to the latest release of Monterey (I think it's 12.2.7?) and it wiped out my GRUB config on the original drive -- I can still load into GRUB, I can see the Debian partition with a live USB, I just don't seem to be able to actually chainload into an operating system from it. Interesting failure mode, that.

Hopefully this is the last major update for Monterey. I only keep it around for work -- one, to have a work environment on my personal laptop so I don't need to take my work laptop with me when I'm travelling for personal reasons, and two, to have a Mac test environment for our stack and a way to read encrypted APFS drives. 99.99997% of the time I'm booting into Debian, but it's useful enough that I keep it on hand.

Right now, my plan is to install Monterey from the USB to a ~100GB partition on the new SSD, then install Debian alongside, and hopefully from Debian I can install rEFInd instead of needing to do it from Monterey before I get moving on Linux as installing there requires me to disable System Integrity Protection and I feel like that's not an amazing thing to need to do on a work install of macOS.

If any of you more familiar with the Mac platform have any insight or can see anything wrong with my order of operations, please let me know. I'm not as familiar with the Mac platform as I likely should be.
 
Last edited:

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,599
Location
I am omnipresent
The tools that are used to allow Hackintoshes can be used in a similar fashion to get old Macs on new versions of the OS. There are instructions all over the place for making it work. I mostly just want to have a working Mac around to have a Mac around, but right now I have a 2019 Mac Mini so I'm not sure what is involved with getting one up to date at the moment. I do know that if I don't have an actual Apple to log in and claim new versions of MacOS, I don't specifically have the right to download them through the App Store. Digging up the URLs to direct download the installer ISOs from Apple is a PITA so I tend to keep at least one Mac around if only to do that.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,525
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Man, this sounds impossible, even the poor danish children start talking later than others because they talk so strange. 🙂

Sweden and Norway is also nice, and Belgium also seems to be OK (besides Netherland). But your skills should be in high demand anywhere. I hope it sorts itself out soon.

Swedish isn't exactly a walk in the park ;) Norwegian is actually the sanest of the lot (at least the words are spelled correctly). I was considering Sweden and Norway, but wanted something Schengen to maximize our (and our daughters) flexibility going forward.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,599
Location
I am omnipresent
I actually know a couple people who have been motivated to learn Norwegian because of Norway's prominence in fabric arts.
Never heard of anyone voluntarily learning Swedish.
 

fb

Storage is cool
Joined
Jan 31, 2003
Messages
710
Location
Östersund, Sweden
You are probably right Merc, there are more useful languages you can learn unless you plan on moving here.
But Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are all very closely related, if you can speak one you can usually understand the others.
Norwegian is maybe my favourite language of the three because the Norwegians always sound happy, even when they are not.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,598
Location
Eglin AFB Area
Website
sedrosken.xyz
Cox had a promotional offer for me that was actually pretty good -- I paid around 50 bucks per month for 250/10 (I was getting 300/12 with my own equipment). For 25 bucks more I got an upgrade to 1000/100 with free unlimited data -- i.e. basically what every other cable co provides, so they're just playing catch-up. I was mostly interested in the upgrade to my upload speed.

Granted, I haven't waited the full allotted 15 minutes yet, but I'm only getting around 40 of that. They had an older 1000/35 plan that it feels like I've been shunted to. Is there some new DOCSIS 3.2 spec or something I need for better upload? My modem is a Netgear CM1000 and it's supposed to be 3.1 compliant. To be fair, 40mbps up is hard to complain about considering just five years ago I'd have sold both kidneys to get that much downstream, and with that kind of upload any streaming issues I have are far more likely to just be my encoder glitching or something server-side, but I paid for 100 up, and I'd like to use it, please and thanks. On Ookla's test it seems I have this initial burst of 60-70mbps and then settle down around 40.
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,741
Location
USA
You could also check if you're able to access the cable modem and look for signal strength and any noise issues in the cable lines. When I had a cable modem in the past it had a diagnostic.enu item that would show the dB of signals to help troubleshoot but that was a long time back.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,598
Location
Eglin AFB Area
Website
sedrosken.xyz
I can see locked channels and SNRs in my modem's interface but I have no clue what normal values are for that. The uncorrectable codewords field seems remarkably high on some channels, but seeing how I more or less manage what I'm rated for coming down (about 910 of the 1000Mbps offered) that's not really what I'm worried about.

1706301144904.png

Of note to me in particular is that only four of the eight bonded upstream channels are locked and neither of the upstream OFDMA channels are locked, so it seems to me like it's trying to work with a hand tied behind its back. That said, I'm only asking for 100mbps up, and it seems to do ~70 at a burst. I don't know how necessary the other channels are.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,599
Location
I am omnipresent
My partner bought a snake back in June. I'm not really a reptile person, so I don't pay much attention to it, but she's always liked them and there's not really a good reason not to have one. Its habitat sits on top of my server rack.

Something we found out is that snakes can get out of their enclosures unless the lid to their habitat is locked. Neither of us knew this, and this eight inch long snake somehow got out and completely disappeared while we were out of town over Thanksgiving.
Needless to say, we spend a solid couple days tearing my place apart looking for it, but we never did find it. We eventually decided one of the cats probably got it, with the most likely candidate being the kitty who likes to hang out on top of the habitat/rack area (her name is WAP, after a popular song and due to her kittenish tendency to accidently fall in the toilet due to differing preferences on the state of the toilet lid). We could not find a snake corpse, but WAP hasn't exactly been getting any love from Nadia in the last couple months.

This morning, my downstairs neighbor's two-year-old found the missing snake, which was apparently just snaking its way across their living room. The little girl just picked it up, prompting a certain amount of "call the cops" horror movie screaming from her mom. Since the word "snake" was clearly among the words being so vigorously enunciated, I went down to check to see if there was a Valentine's Day miracle. Our formerly eight inch long baby is now a bit over a foot long and it's neither starved nor froze. The little girl who found it had to be bribed into giving it up, having formed an attachment in the preceding two minutes, but we have promised that she can come up and visit. Now I'm waiting for a pet store to open so I can bring home a heavier (locking) lid for its habitat and some extra treats for the unfairly maligned WAP.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,599
Location
I am omnipresent
I have also found that my upstream speeds on cable are highly variable. I'm on a 2000/100 package right now, through Comcast's business service. I get substantially better uploads in the evening than I do during business hours, which I have always suspected is due to the usage pattern of other businesses on my cable segment. You might try tracking transfer rates over different times of day to see how performance changes over time.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,674
Location
USA
My partner bought a snake back in June. I'm not really a reptile person, so I don't pay much attention to it, but she's always liked them and there's not really a good reason not to have one. Its habitat sits on top of my server rack.

Something we found out is that snakes can get out of their enclosures unless the lid to their habitat is locked.
This is exactly why people should not have pets if they don't know about them. What species is it?
When I was young I had many reptiles (at least six species of lizards and three of snakes), but not one ever escaped. Snakes are easier to contain than amphibians.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,599
Location
I am omnipresent
This is exactly why people should not have pets if they don't know about them. What species is it?
When I was young I had many reptiles (at least six species of lizards and three of snakes), but not one ever escaped. Snakes are easier to contain than amphibians.

Apparently it is an Eastern Ribbon Snake. As I said, I have no responsibility for it. It's an object of fascination for the cats, but they can't really do anything to it or with it. I have no idea how it got out, either.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,674
Location
USA
There are so many garter snakes that I don't know many of them. The California red-sided garter is the one I recall most. In my youth I liked the kingsnakes (Lampropeltis californiae) the best as pets.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,525
Location
Horsens, Denmark
The internet here is fiber to the technical room in each apartment, then there is a media adapter before connecting to the ISPs router. Recently there was a firmware update to their router that removed bridge mode entirely. After getting through the first level of support (in Danish!) I was able to move fairly quickly to a network engineer who did some stuff on his end, gave me a VLAN on their backbone, and asked me not to break anything. I now have my Ubiquiti Dream Machine SE connected directly to the fiber from their datacenter. I just wanted a static IP for site-site VPN, but it negotiated at 10G? I haven't seen any speeds faster than about 1.5 though (maxed the CPU on a Steam game download). Not bad for $40/mo.
 
Top