I worked tech support for a software company. In the summers things were slow and they allowed a little leeway for working on personal enrichment projects.
I was aware of a room near IT that was filled with outdated computers and hardware. I asked if I could play with them. A few 100 hour weeks later and a coworker and I held a demonstration for IT and management. We proposed using all the old hardware as PXE boot thin clients (1GB RAM + Small HD + PXE NIC) using a modified Debian that would run all the tech support agent software via Citrix. It went off without a hitch in the demo setup.
Management loved it as they could see the cost savings. IT loved it as they'd get another ProLiant Server to house the Citrix and VMWare tooling. It also meant significantly less time dealing with Windows issues on all the agent machines. Ended up rolling it out to 50 agents that year and it was a success. They eventually moved to HP Thin clients, which built on the original idea.
For a lowly tier 2 tech support agent with a passing knowledge of linux, it was a proud achievement and got me noticed in the company.
Project 2.0 was an Asterix box. We were spending a ridiculous amount of money on international calls. Was able to route all the international calls in the office with logic routing on the primary Tadiran PBX (which ran OS2/Warp...lol) to a little Dell workstation with a Digium telephony card and FreePBX. Costing actual pennies on the dollar. It was like magic!
Linux was the wild west back then.
It will likely take awhile for this to have any effect. I know at least in my state (ME) the utility needs to give a 30 day notice of rate hike and then that needs to then go to committee within public utility commission, who will basically arbitrate the request for increase.
Consequently, my supplier of electricity is a wholly owned Canadian company...so they'd actually be paying the increase until a rate hike was approved. Also, would a punitive rate hike even be approved?
They have enough trouble getting a 1% rate hike though for building infrastructure.
Edit: Although I'm not up to speed on if the affected states have set rates or variable rates.
What if we built a system of beacon transmitters that sent out pulses and then used recievers that would compare arrival times of those pulses to make a measurement, thus establishing positional location?
We could call it the Long Range something or other. I’m open to suggestions. Need a catchy name!
I joined the Starlink beta as soon as it was offered in my area, only having access to spotty 4G previously. My census block ended up being awarded to Starlink via the infrastructure act. Thankfully there was a rule change and they removed that contract money from Starlink and awarded it to two different fiber providers.
Work got started last fall...
I now have redundant dual fiber connections going into my house, a 2.5GB/2.5GB and a 1GB/1GB backup. With the first year pricing it costs about the same as Starlink. This is in the middle of nowhere, rural America. I'm told that there is tons of capacity too and they'll be able to increase the speeds of those offerings in the future, as the price for the technology comes down.
It has changed the entire calculus for living and working in this area and becomes a lot more attractive for remote work.
Sucks for all the people that could possibly have amazing internet getting screwed over by this grift. Starlink is a great bandaid, but not a long term solution.
Also pro democracy US citizen.
I live in the only part of the lower 48 that is not directly connected to the American electric grid. Northern Maine gets 100% of its power routed through Canada, with the majority coming from Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in New Brunswick.
If Canada stopped providing electricity, there will be 70,000 people without power in the middle of winter with no recourse.
A majority of my neighbors voted for Trump. FAFO.
Also, eff spez!
That was my only departing comment in the, "Why are you deleting your account" box.
That sounds like a very good idea. The work must carry on!
Removed as moderator of /r/Celebrities after 14 years
They did not provide a reason. There was no further dialog. I just got a system message telling me I was removed.
I was also silmultaniously shadow banned from Reddit and my posts and comments stopped showing up. I had created a post complaining about being removed as the moderator (the only moderator for over a decade) of a sub that I built from the ground up and donated literally thousands of volunteer hours to over the last 14 years. It had zero upvotes or downvotes or comments and was not visible as an anon user.
In the end, I decided to rip the bandaid off and killed my 16.5 year account. I was one of the early supporters of Reddit (user #7758) and had left Digg for good in May of 2007 after the AAC controversy. They showed their authoritarian side in that moment and I knew Digg had reached their high water mark.
Reddit is at that moment now. They won't be dead tomorrow. They won't be dead next week. However, it will also never be the same, and it's only downhill from here.
Much like Digg. Much like Myspace. I am sure there will be a blurb a few years from now as an addendum in some business journal how Reddit sold to a third party for an undisclosed sum and some Skittles...
The future is the Fediverse and I'm glad I was forced to remove my Reddit crutch and dive in full force.
Edit 1: The messages are starting to come in faster than I can reply. Thanks for all the well wishes!
Edit 2: I'll also add, that I was never going to re-open the sub because I knew Reddit wasn't going to yield. Thus, I was prepared for the outcome. I did hope to string them along for a bit longer and waste resources, but you can't win them all.