Grumble4681's recent activity
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Comment on Want to get in the gym? Here are some tips from a beginner.* in ~health
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Comment on Statement from Mozilla's new CEO in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentWhat you're talking about are business figures. Like what it takes to operate a successful business. What I'm talking about is the consumer behavior and theory. You initially disagreed with the...But if I use ChatGPT's current prices, 20 a month 240 a year. Let's round up to 250 dollars per user per year and project this to a seemingly massive 55 billion dollars of revenue. Then you see claims of them committing to 1 trillion dollars of expenditures for hardware alone in 10 years and wonder if the math is mathing.
Maybe we can multiply this by 5-10x to account for pro and B2B stuff, but keep in mind that we still haven't taken labor costs into account with this yet.
What you're talking about are business figures. Like what it takes to operate a successful business. What I'm talking about is the consumer behavior and theory. You initially disagreed with the idea that people are willing to pay for it, so I provided what I believe to be a solid basis for the idea that people will pay for it. Yes, it is an important distinction as to how much they will pay for it, there's surely lots of things people would pay 10 cents for that they wouldn't pay $10 for, but I also think there's a different barrier overcome when you go from free to any cost, even 1 cent, when it comes to recurring costs and just the demand that the person gets out their credit card and types in the numbers not only for the slight inconvenience of that but also because there's another factor to that which probably makes customers weary to do that regardless of the cost, which is that any service can just decide to raise its cost later on and keep billing them at an increased cost. So if you have a service where you get a customer past that point, where they're willing to take on that mental load of accepting those conditions to pay you, regardless of what you're charging, that's already a big barrier to break down.
Now to go further, if people are willing to pay $20 for what that product is today, well if we even believe 1/10th of what Sam Altman would tell us ChatGPT will be capable of in 5 years, to me it's not that hard to believe people wouldn't be willing to pay much more than that. Many people pay $100+ a month for TV service, or used to anyhow. High monthly costs are not something people aren't willing to pay if they find enough value in the product/service.
Open Source models already doomed that aspect of market lock-in. That Deepseek scare from January may have been brief tick so far, but if they start to rent seek their AI all at once then there will be a race to the bottom.
We're talking about the general consumer here. The general consumer isn't spinning up their own LLM. And past that, I'll refer to this other comment I just made with regards to competition/alternatives of LLMs.
I'm not pretending to be an Oracle that can see the future here, I'm saying that I can see why an organization like Mozilla or company within that organization like Firefox would pursue this avenue because I see a legitimate possibility for revenue for a browser which so far has had no real ways of monetizing their product on a wide scale. Many of these other LLM/AI services have been getting into branding their own browsers, so they seemingly think that's a portal to capture customers, so Firefox already is that portal but if they want to capture those customers then they need the services to do it.
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Comment on Statement from Mozilla's new CEO in ~tech
Grumble4681 (edited )Link ParentThe point is that none of those services are sustainable for free. The only reason they exist and work for free right now is because investors are pouring so much money into them the companies can...The point is that none of those services are sustainable for free. The only reason they exist and work for free right now is because investors are pouring so much money into them the companies can still operate them for free, but if investment reaches peak and investors want more and more of their money back to keep their investments, then many of the free options will dry up.
Then it will be become bait and switch territory for competition until customers get worn down at the level you're talking. Where they will entice users with free options to switch, then once the switch is completed, try to compel them to pay, because the investors at the other companies will have reached the same point, they want returns and they're going to need people to pay.
If a customer switches 10 times trying to keep their free service, they end up doing a bunch of work trying to keep free instead of just paying. Eventually people just pay. This is true for many modern digital services. I can get stuff for free or reduced cost that other people are paying full price for because other people don't want to deal with the inconvenience of managing their services. It's like coupons. Why does anyone pay full price to buy any item when if they look around they can find coupons to pay less, because they're inconvenient. Now I realize that's talking about a discount versus not paying at all which has different psychological impacts, but my point is that eventually people pay for something at a level they wouldn't have otherwise because the non-direct impacts of not paying the premium is higher than the cost of paying the premium.
This also includes name recognition/brand awareness. Why does anyone pay for name brand instead of other stuff? Because you can't buy what you don't know exists. So companies that market their product successfully can sell inferior products for higher prices if customers aren't made aware of alternatives. And searching for alternatives also has a mental cost to it. When you're looking for a lawn mower, you could just go to the store and buy the first one you see, or you could look up online trying to figure out what lawn mower to buy and go through all the various criteria and factors that go into what makes a good lawn mower. A lot of people get worn down by having to think of those things, so some people really don't do a lot of digging and they will just buy whatever a semi-reputable storefront will present to them.
So at some point, Claude, Gemini etc. will likely have to have some kind of pay models too and the free experience of today goes away. Even Chinese LLMs will have to do it, they still have to pay for hardware and development too, and they potentially face the uphill battle of marketing that I mentioned above. It's definitely possible some of them could pull off an ad-supported model or such, I'm not foolish enough to say it isn't, I'm just saying that this possibly presents the closest opportunity to a subscription that people will pay for that a browser could add as its own service that actually allows a browser to acquire paying customers for, which is basically unheard of for browsers.
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Comment on Statement from Mozilla's new CEO in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link Parenthttps://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-projected-least-220-million-people-will-pay-chatgpt-by-2030-information-2025-11-26/ Now that could just be trying to hype investment, but if that's a...Artificial intelligence firm OpenAI has projected at least 220 million of ChatGPT weekly users will pay for a subscription, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
OpenAI projects that by 2030, 8.5% of an estimated 2.6 billion weekly users, or around 220 million people, will subscribe to its chatbot, positioning ChatGPT among the world's largest subscription businesses, according to the report.
Now that could just be trying to hype investment, but if that's a genuine and real expectation from the company, 220 million subscribers is not nothing.
Amazon for years couldn't figure out how to make money off Alexa, and now with an LLM behind it, they're selling it as a subscription through Alexa+.
I'm not even sure this is accounting for revenue that these LLM services are taking in through API usage which then other services are selling as their own service. People are paying for these AI services, and if they're half as useful as the pie in the sky that these executives are marketing their services as, people will be willing to pay for them because at a certain point they won't have a choice. People pay for things they really want or find useful when they have no alternative to get it for free, and there will come a day when investors will want their money back on their investment and when that happens across all the services, it won't be an option for someone to utilize free AI opposed to paid AI, all options will require payment and some of these people will pony up for it if it's actually that useful.
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Comment on Statement from Mozilla's new CEO in ~tech
Grumble4681 LinkI may be the outlier here, but in the event that somehow AI is a key component of browsers in the future, then Firefox not developing these features would be the final nail in the coffin of the...- Exemplary
I may be the outlier here, but in the event that somehow AI is a key component of browsers in the future, then Firefox not developing these features would be the final nail in the coffin of the browser. Furthermore, I would hope there's opportunity to monetize them in a way that funds Firefox development as I would assume this would at least put all browsers on equal or near equal footing. It seems AI is the one area where some people are willing to pay and is almost necessary to pay on some level for the current costs of many of these services.
Having said that, the key is that it needs to be optional, and they probably just need to respect that some people don't want any of it and not pull a Microsoft where every time they change something or add some new shiny feature they don't shove it in the faces of people who have made it clear they aren't interested. Just make an option where people can opt out all of AI features now and future ones so they don't have to uncheck or check 50 different boxes.
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Comment on Want to get in the gym? Here are some tips from a beginner.* in ~health
Grumble4681 Link ParentThis is a very lame excuse on my part, but what you highlighted here is a contributing factor to why I don't exercise. In fact, I was going to the gym 2-3 times a week and not exercising at all,...Without expert(ish) advice, it's easy for a newbie to just fling around weights any which way, with no thought to technique. However, you're cheating yourself if you use bad form or technique, because you're getting help to launch the weights to the target heights, and the muscles you should be building to lift the weights are not getting fully engaged (and so are not getting built as much as they could).
Example: overhead press. It's very easy to unthinkingly hike the barbell or dumbells over your head by using your knees (a sort of "micro jump"), but then you're not working your shoulders and arms as much as they should, because your legs are "stealing" some of the workload away. So, numerically, you might have gotten N pounds over your head, but your shoulders and arms didn't actually fully achieve that.
Example: standing dumbell curls. You can certainly get higher weight up in the air if you swing the dumbells and use the momentum to help it up, but, again, your biceps are not getting all the workout they could be because the actual resistant force (coming from gravity) is less due to being stolen/reduced by the swing momentum.
Not to mention the injury risks from having a heavy weight yank your limbs beyond a natural range of motion, or undergo sudden stress/strain; or the risk of unintentionally recruiting weak, small, or non-target muscles to overwork when the correct muscles for the exercise should take most of the workload.
It's really helpful to learn from an expert about the proper form and technique for the exercises you do. In my case, it was physiotherapists (whom I cannot endorse enough -- they are rockstars that really know the human body).
This is a very lame excuse on my part, but what you highlighted here is a contributing factor to why I don't exercise. In fact, I was going to the gym 2-3 times a week and not exercising at all, and I had nothing better to do and nowhere better to go, and yet I still wasn't exercising. I don't know how to, and I'm aware that there's a right way and a wrong way to exercise and since I don't know I just don't do it. I'm also aware that doing nothing at all is almost surely the wrongest way, but since it's passive it is easier than actively choosing to do something that I don't know.
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Comment on Meet Pebble Index 01 - External memory for your brain in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentI wasn't just figuring the switch itself but also the silicon cover on the button from repeated wear. I'd assume it being a ring that it would get a lot of fidgeting wear, but perhaps since...I wasn't just figuring the switch itself but also the silicon cover on the button from repeated wear. I'd assume it being a ring that it would get a lot of fidgeting wear, but perhaps since pressing the button would cause recordings to happen it may dissuade people from fidgeting with it.
They compared this ring to the Oura which they claimed has to be charged every couple days. Maybe they made that comparison just to make the single use option seem more favorable, or perhaps it's not realistic to achieve the same design and integrate the charging circuit and keep even 1/4th of the battery. Perhaps it would be substantially less than that, I don't know. I'd agree with you that 1/4 of the battery and the charging interval for that wouldn't be nearly as bad, but that's not the comparison they made for what the drawback would be if they integrated a charging circuit.
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Comment on Meet Pebble Index 01 - External memory for your brain in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentNearly everything is disposable depending on how you frame it, this one is actually up front about it. I wouldn't say it's disingenuous to call it disposable because it very much is disposable,...Nearly everything is disposable depending on how you frame it, this one is actually up front about it. I wouldn't say it's disingenuous to call it disposable because it very much is disposable, but I also don't see why it should be scrutinized too much different than other products of similar category as I think many of them are treated as disposable and just aren't acknowledged for that being their likely future in the vast majority of cases. This is just based on my observation of other people and how I've seen them treat products so it's strictly my opinion from personal experience.
I think if Pebble wants more credit for offering to recycle it they should have put more emphasis in what they are doing to make it easy for people to do so, otherwise it could come across like a throwaway empty gesture while knowing most people won't bother to actually do it. Like estimated costs to ship it back or if they're providing prepaid mailers or such, while that wouldn't likely address human behavior or tendency for some to just throw it in the trash compared to sending it back to recycle it, I'd consider it the least amount of effort they could have put into the announcement of such a product.
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Comment on Meet Pebble Index 01 - External memory for your brain in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentTo me this is the opposite expectation I'd have for a product like this. I could be wrong but I doubt that button would last a lifetime if its used as much as one would expect for someone who...To me this is the opposite expectation I'd have for a product like this. I could be wrong but I doubt that button would last a lifetime if its used as much as one would expect for someone who would buy this. And the explanation for why it doesn't have an option to charge makes sense, and if the battery had to be cut substantially to make room for charging circuitry then it just becomes another annoying device that requires charging upkeep on too frequent a basis and then becomes useless too often as you forget to charge them. There's already way too many products that people might use that all need charged on too frequent of a basis that they're incredibly annoying to use if you acquire too many of them.
As for sending it back to them to recycle, if this was cheap and easy enough to do, that seems like a fairly solid compromise. I'd assume it may require some kind of special packing/labeling or such to ship it back since it still has a battery in it but I don't know the rules on that.
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Comment on Over 120,000 home cameras hacked for 'sexploitation' footage in ~tech
Grumble4681 (edited )Link ParentI think maybe one time I dealt with EZViz but not extensively. I would be way more wary of anything purely cloud based, not necessarily just for security or privacy reasons but because I don't...I think maybe one time I dealt with EZViz but not extensively. I would be way more wary of anything purely cloud based, not necessarily just for security or privacy reasons but because I don't trust the devices to not become paperweights or trust the company not to leverage the possibility of making the devices paperweights unless you pay an exorbitant monthly fee.
Hikvision was also restricted in the US, but from what I recall it was predominantly on federal government properties and the company I worked for didn't do any government projects so that was never an issue.
One of the other notable issues with Hikvision and restrictions in the US is that Hikvision was not offering their cloud management service in the US, which was meant to be a solution for middle man security companies. In theory it would have limited many, but not all, of the security issues that we were encountering with those systems, but I think they were concerned about legal issues so they intentionally excluded the US from the service. They also chose to remove their app from the Google Play Store which made installation of the app more annoying on customer devices since it had to be sideloaded, which is yet another potential security issue because these customers would otherwise have never encountered a reason to sideload anything on their phone in all likelihood.
I wouldn't have necessarily had an issue with using their cameras if they were segmented on an outbound restricted vlan behind a recording system like an NVR or PC running Blue Iris, but I'd never choose to expose them to the internet on my own. And even my recording system I would not expose, I personally use Tailscale to access all my self-hosted services.
What really bothered me is that those cameras were absolutely much cheaper and easier to acquire than many other cameras of more reputable places. Like comparing Hikvision to Hanwha or Axis etc., the prices for the reputable brands were absolutely outrageous by comparison. Now one could easily argue that there's a reason the price of one is so much lower and that it means there is something nefarious about them, but in any case it still made it a very hard pill to swallow to go with more high-end reputable brands when a camera with certain specs from Hikvision could be $150 while a similar spec camera from another brand would be $800.
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Comment on Over 120,000 home cameras hacked for 'sexploitation' footage in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentI worked for a company that installed security cameras and it really drove me nuts how insecure they were set up and the owner was somewhat cognizant of the issue but one of the problems is that...I worked for a company that installed security cameras and it really drove me nuts how insecure they were set up and the owner was somewhat cognizant of the issue but one of the problems is that it's just a race to the bottom. Installing cheap chinese hardware with trash firmware/software was seen as necessary because if 'we' (the company I worked for) didn't do it, competitors would do it and get the sale/job. I tried to insist on better security practices for the equipment we were using but the management at that company was nearly non-existent and lacked any ability to exert such a setup process that would be needed to overcome the poor firmware and software of the equipment. We were using rebadged Hikvision equipment.
And I know for a fact there were cameras installed inside homes that customers wanted, primarily in the living room areas but also in some other areas though typically the owner of the company would refuse to install in bedrooms. A couple times parents wanted cameras installed inside their kids bedrooms which at the very least they refused to do.
The worst part about that is, the passwords for basically all camera systems installed at all customer systems was the same. The Hikvision systems had no management user layer generally, like there were certain things you could only do with the hardcoded admin account and if you were a security company wanting to provide a higher level of customer service to customers you needed this admin account, but that also meant you had access to all the camera footage. So combined with the atrocious password management, this meant technicians or really anyone working at the company had full access to nearly every single camera system the company installed, including some systems that customers had cameras installed inside their homes. And the password was not all that complex, so if I had to guess that password is in a ton of databases for security cameras and people across the world could likely easily access them.
Ironically this made some cloud-controlled security camera services more secure within this context, because they could be more easily configured for better security. These services were intended for a middle-man security company which meant the software was built in such a way to satisfy the needs of the middle-man to provide service and shield the company from liability by limiting their access unless the customer explicitly approved it. The ones we used at that company were through Alarm.com and its subsidiary OpenEye.
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Comment on Sling TV celebrates court win with $1 Day Pass offer, vows to continue fight for consumer choice in ~tv
Grumble4681 (edited )LinkThis just says that the court denied Disney's request for a preliminary injunction, which would have prevented Sling from offering this while the case is still ongoing. So it's a court win in the...This just says that the court denied Disney's request for a preliminary injunction, which would have prevented Sling from offering this while the case is still ongoing. So it's a court win in the temporary sense but doesn't determine whether this type of offering will actually be able to stick around.
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Comment on Google backpedals on new Android developer registration rules in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentThis partly highlights one of the problems with a broken legislative system, but also is part of a bigger revelation of the weakness in our judicial systems. We already know many of these...This partly highlights one of the problems with a broken legislative system, but also is part of a bigger revelation of the weakness in our judicial systems.
We already know many of these companies get slaps on the wrist equivalent in fines, a very small cost of doing business; However the other flaw that has been increasingly abused in the judicial system is their rulings are meant to be narrow and tailored to specific actions perhaps to mitigate legislation from the bench, but it ultimately leads to factions with lots of resources to be able to continue tweaking their violative actions and they each get treated as separate.
The Trump administration is doing this a lot, break a law, court says they can't, so they pretend to follow the court but meanwhile knowingly break another law in a similar way and court tells them to stop again, adnauseum. As long as each action is treated independently and they don't directly continue to violate court orders for that one specific action, avoid consequences while continuing to break the law.
This action by Google is flagrantly violating the spirit of the order against them to open up the app store. But they can get away without punishment of violating that order because they can open up the app store in the specific way that was challenged in court, while creating a new way to lock it down so that one has to go through the challenge in court again as a separate action.
Because our legislative branch is so corrupt and broken, there's no legislation specific enough to make challenging it in court an easier time while also broad enough to make sure all varying types of actions don't get treated separately.
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Comment on Halo: Campaign Evolved | The Silent Cartographer – Thirteen minute gameplay demo in ~games
Grumble4681 Link ParentThe first remake of Halo CE is definitely not perfect. There's some original Xbox players of the game including myself that don't like some aspects of the remake because they used the Halo PC...The first remake of Halo CE is definitely not perfect. There's some original Xbox players of the game including myself that don't like some aspects of the remake because they used the Halo PC version to remake and the Halo PC version has some differences from the Xbox version. So if you originally played the game on Xbox, there are certain details that if you notice them, kinda puts a ceiling on the nostalgia feeling.
But I highly doubt they're going to rectify those things here and even if they were it wouldn't justify another remake at this point. It is what it is at this point. They took their shot back when they did and the campaign remake of the Anniversary edition was pretty good but not perfect, the multiplayer included with MCC was an absolute disaster.
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Comment on Halo: Campaign Evolved | The Silent Cartographer – Thirteen minute gameplay demo in ~games
Grumble4681 Link ParentI feel somewhat similar, though from what I've heard, it sounds like it won't be the same game exactly, it's not clear to me though. I was told it will have climbing and sprinting in it, which can...I feel somewhat similar, though from what I've heard, it sounds like it won't be the same game exactly, it's not clear to me though. I was told it will have climbing and sprinting in it, which can drastically change the game play if that is true, and there may also be other things I haven't heard about.
I think after they have botched so many Halo releases lately, they've killed the brand and franchise pretty good. I feel like a lot of old Halo fans would have a hard time trusting them on this. Like MCC was such a complete disaster that my friend group kinda all gave up on Halo because that was totally unplayable on launch and barely playable for a long time after. By the time they even made it playable, so many people stopped playing that not only did it make getting matches difficult, it also meant that you couldn't get matches you want because of how matchmaking systems typically work, the fewer people there are, the less choice of options.
And from what I'm hearing from people who have worked for Microsoft in game development formerly and still have connections there, it sounds like the new remake is possibly going to be another technical disaster like MCC. I believe Halo Infinite also had a shaky launch from what one of my friends told me when they tried it, but I never tried it because my enthusiasm for that franchise is completely sapped.
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Comment on US President Donald Trump has begun demolishing the east wing of the White House, without approval in ~society
Grumble4681 Link ParentI'm pretty sure they use this line in the TV show The Wire, I think in the season finale so it would have come after the New Yorker. Never knew it possibly even came from that. Could also just...I'm pretty sure they use this line in the TV show The Wire, I think in the season finale so it would have come after the New Yorker. Never knew it possibly even came from that. Could also just have been a coincidence but still interesting to know.
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Comment on What is your 'Subway Take'? in ~talk
Grumble4681 Link ParentI saw someone do this while being (eye)balls deep into their phone. When thinking about how they were driving and the observed behavior, I was pretty sure they intentionally got in the left-most...I saw someone do this while being (eye)balls deep into their phone. When thinking about how they were driving and the observed behavior, I was pretty sure they intentionally got in the left-most lane so they could use their phone with the least amount of interaction of other cars on the road. They were going about the speed limit which for the left lane is slow so everyone was passing them. It was 3 lanes in this direction so the right lane is both the slower lane and also the lane where everyone gets onto the highway, and the middle lane is the one people shift to to let others onto the highway without issue as well as going faster than the speed limit but not catch a ticket faster, so there's still a lot of action going on in the middle lane. The left lane has the least amount of interaction and if you're someone who is holding the phone up with one hand and staring at it which is what the woman was doing when I saw her, you don't even really have to look ahead if you want to be careless, you just assume everyone else will work around you.
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Comment on EA is reportedly about to be sold in a record-setting $50 billion buyout to an investor group that includes private equity and Saudi Arabia in ~games
Grumble4681 LinkI haven't played an EA game in ages, even more recently when I have played like Madden, they're so exceedingly unrewarding that I view this as only possible upside (albeit slim chances). I don't...I haven't played an EA game in ages, even more recently when I have played like Madden, they're so exceedingly unrewarding that I view this as only possible upside (albeit slim chances). I don't think EA can be any worse than it is now.
I get that for some people, games like The Sims could take a step back in some content depending on Saudi influence in particular, but even though I loved playing The Sims when I was younger, I put them with Madden and such now. They feel like soulless money grabs rather than something that actually makes me want to play because it's fun or original. I haven't followed The Sims as much recently so my impressions could be off there but that's just how I see it from a distance anyhow.
I view it as, I have nothing to lose with this because EA made mostly such garbage that I haven't bothered with them in years that this can't make them any worse, but possibly could shake things up enough that maybe they will eventually make something of worth to me again.
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Comment on UPS recommendations for home use? in ~comp
Grumble4681 (edited )LinkThis most likely won't fit your use case based on what you have said so far, but just in case you weren't aware and maybe it would fit other factors that you hadn't considered, you could also look...This most likely won't fit your use case based on what you have said so far, but just in case you weren't aware and maybe it would fit other factors that you hadn't considered, you could also look at non-traditional UPS systems that use LifePO4 batteries and these are usually called power stations/solar generators.
Here's an example
https://www.ecoflow.com/us/river-3-plus-portable-power-station
That one is fairly pricey, I just came up with a brand off the top of my head and picked the first result I found so there could certainly be better deals, but that just gives an idea of the type of product.
The main advantage to these is that they have longer lasting batteries and larger battery capacities. My limited understanding is that the battery chemistry for these is such that they can't output their capacity as quickly as lead-acid, so an equal capacity of LifePO4 would not be able to power on all the same devices as a lead-acid would be, therefore to get similar power output capabilities it would necessitate a larger capacity, and as a byproduct also gives you greater on-time in the event the power does go out.
For traditional UPS systems, I own 5 Cyberpower UPS units and had no issues with any of them other than the lead-acid battery dying which isn't really an issue of the UPS, just a matter of whether or not you proactively replace the battery before it dies and don't experience an issue or wait until the battery dies and the potential issue that causes before replacing it. Some of those are the beefier units that I paid $100 or more for. It's worth noting that almost all of these are in storage for me right now, they're effectively useless to me, and I ended up buying a power station for my current living situation though I am not using it for UPS functionality. So basically I mentioned the non-traditional UPS because if they had existed at the price point they do now back when I bought the other UPS systems and I had come across them, I may have valued that more for the versatility of use case they offer and I wouldn't have a bunch of the lead-acid UPS systems sitting in storage right now.
Also with regards to the other comment and the link to CyberPower UPS fires, when I was researching UPS units, almost all of them seemingly had poor reviews here or there because they burst into flames or the unit melted or such. Between APC and Cyberpower especially I saw that, but also Tripp-lite and others had those issues and more. At my former workplace we had a few Tripp-lite units for very important devices that needed high uptime, and those tripp-lites would literally just randomly power off or have some other issue. And you can find this in reviews online that other people experienced it too.
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Comment on "House from hell” — How America’s largest homebuilders shift the cost of shoddy construction to buyers in ~finance
Grumble4681 Link ParentWith regards to the last line about people who may say build more housing and remove some of the regulations, I think the challenge is that some of these people are buying from these corner...With regards to the last line about people who may say build more housing and remove some of the regulations, I think the challenge is that some of these people are buying from these corner cutting homebuilders because they probably couldn't afford the same housing from a more quality homebuilder. Which I'm sure there are some out there, but they will cost more and it will likely be a slower build
As with many regulations, they help people who can afford to and ultimately are able to acquire a home, but it's undeniable that they also gatekeep others out of them.
I live in my car right now. In most places I don't think I'm legally even able to buy a piece of land and sleep in my car on that land. So instead I have to work around the system to find ways to exist in my car in less than legal ways sometimes and leech off public and business property in more ways more than I would have to otherwise if I wasn't regulated out of existing some other way.
There absolutely is. One of my biggest social anxieties is doing things that are new to me in front of other people. Well that's what working out in a gym would be for me.
I also have a problem with slight nuances in procedures or such that blow up my anxiety beyond a rational level. For example, I went out with family to a buffet the other day and my anxiety increased substantially between having to walk around people in a crowded environment and processing the minutiae within the scope of walking around a buffet restaurant and getting a plate, walking around looking at the food and deciding in that space and so on. Clearly I don't go to buffets often. So you can extrapolate that and apply it to going to the gym to imagine the issues I would have with that. Most of the time I will just straight up avoid anything I'm not familiar with, even the simplest things, because of this. I wouldn't go to Subway for the longest time because I didn't fully understand what the process was for ordering, like why they have a menu that presents fixed items as a specific preparation but then they walk down the line of items and ask you what you want and so on. So usually my introduction to most things is going with someone else who does something first and then I can see what they do and emulate it.
No, I am going to Planet Fitness which is the cheapest place and they don't really hire people for their knowledge or experience in working out. I have been living out of my car, so the reason I even go to the gym is to take a shower. That's why I've been going to the gym as often as I mentioned while not exercising.