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ct0 commented on A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure   sacbear.com/xfinity-wont-... · Posted by u/vedmed
tfvlrue · a month ago
I had a similar problem with a different ISP, Optimum, in Northern NJ. It wasn't as regular as the author's problem -- my cable modem would desync intermittently throughout the day despite the signal strength numbers being in spec.

I replaced everything downstream of the drop from the street, all new wiring inside, a new modem/router/etc. All signs pointed to the problem being outside the house. I went so far as to connect an oscilloscope to the coax line to look for patterns. I discovered that if I physically manipulated a particular section of the line from the pole, a huge interference pattern appeared and the modem's connection dropped. Eventually I could reproduce the connection loss fairly easily.

Convincing the ISP to actually do anything about it was much harder. Despite first-hand evidence that the coax from the pole needed to be replaced, their tech support insisted that someone had to come into the house to inspect the interior wiring. No amount of insistence on my part would convince them that it was not necessary. The building was a vacation home, and this was during peak COVID time, so there was basically no chance of that happening. The appointment came with threats of service charges if they sent a tech and could not enter the building or reproduce the problem, so I cancelled it.

Coincidentally, I happened to discover that the mayor of the town had started a hotline specifically for reporting home Internet problems in the town. So I sent in a message to that service, not really expecting anything to come of it. But shortly after I get a phone call from some higher-up department of the ISP. They had a truck out within a few days to replace the drop -- with no one home -- and the connection was rock solid ever since.

This experience taught me that ISPs often have distinct support channels that governmental departments use to contact them. I think they called it the "executive support team" or something along those lines. Basically, if you can get a message in that way, it's possible to circumvent the useless consumer-level support. Long story short, I think escalating this through the local or state level government may be the author's best shot at getting this resolved.

ct0 · a month ago
Contacting the Board of Public Utilities in NJ would have probably been your best bet. By law they need to start addressing issues within a week or so. I had some downed comms cable on my property that they took very seriously after contacting the BPU. Fixed within 2 weeks and the ISP support is local and senior.
ct0 commented on The R47: A new physical RPN calculator   swissmicros.com/product/m... · Posted by u/dm319
PopePompus · a month ago
There was a time when I would have salivated over this. But now I can run iPython on my phone, and have numpy, sympi, scipy, astropy and countless other packages. Physical keyboards are great for calculators - much better than virtual keyboards on phones. But the keyboard advantage seems to me most valuable for quick calculations, not elaborate things like this calculator offers. If I'm going to do matrix calculations, I want to be able to put the data into a file with a real, and familiar, editor. I want to be able to grab tables of data from the web. If I make a plot, I want to be able to save it to a PNG file. I want a high resolution color display. A phone running iPython/Python seems much better to me, especially since almost everyone who would want to do what this calculator does already has a smartphone. Also, I can ssh into my phone and interact with it using my desktop computer's keyboard and monitor, eliminating the phone keyboard limitations when a full sized computer is nearby.
ct0 · a month ago
What IDE do you use? this functionality sounds great.
ct0 commented on Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest   roberdam.com/en/dinversio... · Posted by u/roberdam
yaky · 2 months ago
Be careful with comparing real-life things and experiences with a (virtual) number on a screen, especially for children.

I used to know an adult who only cared about that number going up, despite making more than a comfortable amount of money. Live with parents, save on rent/mortgage, number goes up faster. Buy cheapest food, take leftovers from work-catered lunches, number goes up faster. Scam your way into being hired for a position you are severely underqualified for, get terminated after three months, keep the salary and sign-on bonus, number goes up. Invest pretty much everything (because there are almost no expenses), compound interest.

ct0 · 2 months ago
Agreed, in 7th grade we did a stock market simulation, it made winning feel too easy.
ct0 commented on I built physical album cards with NFC tags to teach my son music discovery   fulghum.io/album-cards... · Posted by u/jordanf
ct0 · 2 months ago
There is a similar children's toy called Yoto that uses cards to load stories and songs on a player. I love the idea of hacking something together, this is really cool !
ct0 commented on Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)   windscribe.com/blog/the-v... · Posted by u/walterbell
plmpsu · 3 months ago
Just pay for and use Mullvad.
ct0 · 2 months ago
They dont port forward unfortunately
ct0 commented on She Sent Her iPhone to Apple. Repair Techs Uploaded Her Nudes to Facebook (2021)   vice.com/en/article/she-s... · Posted by u/janandonly
ct0 · 3 months ago
Oh if you only knew what was happening in the back room when you transferred your device from one computer to another...
ct0 commented on Abu Dhabi royal family to take stake in TikTok US   theguardian.com/technolog... · Posted by u/andsoitis
bgwalter · 3 months ago
If Larry Ellison overtly censors TikTok, teenagers will leave.

Do I understand that the strategy here is soft power so that teenagers get approved content via the algorithm in the hope that they don't notice? That is a pretty big gamble.

So they are dumping part of that risk on the gulf monarchies like with Twitter. I bet China is already working on a TikTok replacement.

ct0 · 3 months ago
No they wont, teens everywhere still use IG, and YT.
ct0 commented on A platform-jumping prince – History of Prince of Persia's 1990s Ports   jordanmechner.com/en/late... · Posted by u/michelangelo
bluedino · 3 months ago
My friends parents used to clean a business on the weekends, and as kids we got dragged along, but we had permission to play games on one of the office computers.

It was an unassuming 286 running DOS, but it had a modem and a couple bulletin boards in the phonebook.

Prince of Persia was one of the games we played the most. Paired with a Soundblaster and a small set of speakers, playing that game in a dark office was a great experience.

ct0 · 3 months ago
Sounds way more fun than my childhood, all I had was Raisins.
ct0 commented on Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy   theguardian.com/film/2025... · Posted by u/nemoniac
bkettle · 4 months ago
I was wondering recently whether someone could conceivably start a disk-in-the-mail Netflix again, now that streaming sucks so much and every publisher seems to want their own streaming service. My understanding (possibly wrong, I'm not an expert) is that it's perfectly legal to lend out physical media without any special permission from the publisher under the first-sale doctrine, so it seems like the only way to build a library that has content from many different publishers.

(of course, this could only work as long as publishers keep producing physical media)

ct0 · 4 months ago
The pirates version of blockbuster is still alive and well at your local library.
ct0 commented on MacBook Pro Insomnia   manuel.bernhardt.io/posts... · Posted by u/speckx
SubiculumCode · 5 months ago
My new A16 iPad seems to use more power sitting closed much than I would have thought. I came here to say this, but found you got to it first. I hope someone here has some thoughts on the matter.

I am more Android guy, so I am not yet familiar with the options. Does the iPad have a power usage app describing what apps/services are using the power? Bluetooth for one to keep the Apple Pencil ready, I suppose.

ct0 · 5 months ago
yes, search for battery

u/ct0

KarmaCake day966December 13, 2010
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