Our meshtastic network was pretty robust at one point. It hurts that I’m not at a good point geographically, as well. I have a massive ridge between me and most of the network. That also made technician-level ham pretty pointless from home. At one point, about 3/4 of our messages on our mesh was just people in aircraft overhead. I know we are flyover but it was very demoralizing.

We’ve had a pretty active mesh where I’m from but I see this very similarly to ham radios. They are great for specific scenarios but not terribly useful in everyday life. I still have my meshtastic node powered on but I rarely connect my phone to it to check things. When I do, there aren’t that many nodes that are active.

Overally, I’d say it’s great if you can afford cheap hardware and/or want to build but you aren’t going to get much daily use out of it.

I have as much as possible. In my personal life, it’s easy. At work, not so much.

How about we just stop using Microsoft products instead?

Thanks for posting this. It’s a great, and very timely post. I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts on topics for a few years and can’t seem to find a good medium for publication. I’m of the age where I’ve seen the concept of blogging come and, seemingly, go. However, I believe we are on the cusp of change with people growing disgusted with the current status quo. Long-form writing may be poised for a comeback. That would make it good to get back into practice earlier rather than later.

Bless his heart

If Tom Cotton is against you, you must be doing something right.

Ahh, the spoiled rich kid defense. Change the rules so you can win every game.

I’m a bit surprised to see a permanent Arkansas license plate on it. There’s a better chance of it having an expired temp tag.

I’m really just working through options here. And I turned 18 long ago. :) I’m not really against those metro houses but the style you can get for less in some of those smaller towns is definitely appealing. I’m still looking all over the Denver metro and Fort Collins, even in Colorado Springs. I think even those conservative leaning areas closer to civilization are better than what we have here in the bible belt, as you say. Now that the SC has agreed to reconsider Obergfell, I’m sure this state will ban gay marriage as soon as they can and probably even try to invalidate ones that are already done. I’m a normie white guy but I know that the more these hatemongers can ostracize and make illegal, the less this state is going to be livable.

Personally, I have political beliefs on the liberal and conservative sides of the spectrum, but none that could be considered far right. I think Colorado at a state level insulates some of what I’m expose to here, as well. However, just doing the reading on Holyoke and how they did everything in their power to keep the weed out tells me they are well beyond my tolerance level. Even here we have medical and it’s fairly well accepted even by the right wingers. You see dispensaries everywhere and all the product has to be grown and processes within the state to be legal.

I’ll keep my search up on the Front Range and see what pops up as appealing. I not really pressed for time but I’m not Uncle Scrooge with unlimited money so I get to/must be picky.

That’s the struggle. It’s hard to make a mayonnaise house into something charming and unique. It will always be mayonnaise at its bones. I’d have to tear down and rebuild and I do not have the money for that. I’m with you on the gardening, though. That was just one example of using that space. I have a travel trailer that I’d like to park as well. And we’d like to have or build some nice outdoor seating and living areas.

I’ve purposefully ignored Greeley because of the smell. I’ve never experienced it but heard about it the whole time I was in Colorado the first time. I’ve always equated it to the paper mill south of where I grew up. If the wind shifted, you smelled it and it wasn’t pleasant. I’ve always heard Greeley is much worse, though.

I’m still looking at Denver metro just for job purposes but I’m free to be as remote as I want and was looking for other options. I’m also pretty set on Colorado just because the general path of the state politically. It’s not perfect but it’s better than the bible belt.

Have you lived in places like Fort Morgan, Sterling, or others in that general vicinity? Is there a sliding scale based on how far East you are from Denver? My previous experience was Colorado Springs which was pretty nutty “f-you got mine” libertarian and bible thumping religious at the time. I don’t necessarily need it to be a liberal mecca but I do want it to be a place where everyone isn’t trying hard to out-jesus or out-trump everyone else.

Always did like the look of those models.

Thanks for the Archi Wiki link. I always forget about that thing. I’m a bit fan of the late model, low mileage computer purchases. They are cheap and I’m keeping something out of a landfill in Africa.

That’s where my AMD focus came from. I assume the BIOSes are different and may at least have the option to re-enable S2. I’ve seen a few of the 8840 processors and the laptops look nice. There’s specifically an Asus one I like but I’ve ready mixed reviews on it with Linux.

I’d love a Framework but the 13 is a bit too small for my old eyes and the 16 is just too heavy. I’ve gotten spoiled by lightweight laptops. I was looking at that 16 for a long time, though.

No kidding. My old Dells are great but the newer beefier one requires me to spend alot of thought on keeping it charged. I went back to my M1 Mac just for the lack of worry about having enough power. I wish MS didn’t have such power over the vendors but I also wish we could figure this out on the Linux side. I’ve searched and searched for an S0ix solution but finally gave up and asked here about other hardware.

I’ve heard alot of those stories but have never experienced them. I hope I’m not just trading one problem for another in trying to find a good sleeping laptop.

Except that most risks are from bad leadership decisions. Exhibit A: patches exist for so many vulnerabilities that remain unpatched because of bad business decisions.

I think in a theoretical sense, she is correct. However, in practice things are much different.

It sounds like we are pretty similar in our attitudes.

I completely agree with everything you’ve said. I often wonder if the people complaining about VA healthcare are just grumpy old codgers who don’t pay attention, aren’t kind, and need someone else to clean up their messes.

I’m sure the great care I’ve gotten here at CAVHS is somewhat due to being active in my own care and being courteous to those providing it.

I do know that different areas have different populations and demographics. We probably have more old people here than in Colorado but we are also a much more lightly populated state. I’m just curious how that translates to waits and attitudes out there.

On the 90d to 30d by calling, I just did that with a sleep study here. I was scheduled for June of next year and a quick call a few days later got it moved up to November.