Comments

Episode 2310- Listener Feedback for 10-16-18 — 14 Comments

  1. On the question about the M977,
    When I first moved to Idaho, I swore I wanted an old deuce and a half. After less than a year of traveling the back roads, my crew can pick-up proved problematic. I now own a Chevy luv. I couldn’t fathom trying to get a deuce down most of the FS roads let alone a 977. And yes, I’ve driven both extensively in the military.
    Just my 2 cents.
    Thanks Jack

  2. Re: guineas. They’re territorial as hell. If they’re left to their own and have a good space to run and patrol, they’ll be fine.

    My neighbors had a rogue Tom turkey and a couple Guinea hens that would patrol the property eating bugs and chasing off intruders, including some 2 legged ones, haha.

    They loved patrolling the fencelines of the property. They would regularly kill and eat both mice and snakes. Even poisonous copperheads, they ripped them to shreds in a bloody mess. Brutal birds.

  3. Jack, I think you missed the mark on net neutrality.  In my opinion, most people are so sick of their ISP’s antics that they are using any means possible to strike back at the bravo-sierra the ISP regularly foists upon them.  You spoke about your experiences with your ISP and I have to admit I am envious.  My experiences couldn’t be more different.  I should mention that I am a tech with a F500 company so I know one or two things about networking.

    My ISP (CenturyTel) could not deliver a consistent connection speed at what I was paying for.  The “solution” was to throttle my bandwidth by 25% to a lower level.  That way I would “always be at 100% of my speed”.  These are single digit speeds, not the glorious triple digits you get.  Oh, and they would charge me the same money for the throttled connection.  Another situation is they snuck a charge on my bill for a ‘modem rental’.  As I mentioned I am a tech and run Cisco gear, not the ISP’s ‘free’ consumer grade garbage.  I do not run, and have never run, the ISP’s gear yet they suddenly decided to add it to my bill.  Good thing I pay my bill by hand every month, rather than most people who have an auto-withdrawal – and may not have noticed the newly added charge.

    The really fun story is my mom’s Smart TV with Comcast.  I could not figure out why Netflix (a *content* competitor to Comcast) was so dodgy on the Smart TV.  It worked fine on all my devices, and speedtest said plenty of bandwidth available.  A bit of research, a bit of testing later, and I realized Comcast was throttling bandwidth to that specific device as they could tell it was a Smart TV and not a PC or other device.  I stood up a network proxy and the Smart TV started working just fine (ie: same Internet & wifi connections) because Comcast saw the proxy as a PC and not a competitor to their content.

    My mom also had a problem where she called the ISP rather than me.  They were able to remotely access the modem and reconfigure it, including having access to the LAN side of their router (ie: her home network).  Fortunately I had it set up with double NAT and a real firewall internally so they couldn’t get anywhere, but the fact that they *could* get to anything inside their router is scary.

    But that’s just me.  Expanding it out, most Americans do NOT have an option for an alternative ISP.  They are stuck with who they have and cannot simply switch to an alternative in a competitive situation.  The ISPs know this and trample over customers as they see fit.

    So again, I come back to my opinion.  I have personally been screwed by my ISP.  I have seen an ISP doing bandwidth throttling to a device which competes with their content.  I am not the least bit surprised about the push for net neutrality.  I do not believe it is the correct solution, but I can understand most people latching on to it as a means by which to push back at their ISP.  I do believe the correct solution is increased competition and reasonable options (ie: not satellite) for people to select from multiple different ISPs rather than being locked in to whoever services a given geographic area.

    As always, thank you for the show!  I enjoy your insights and analysis.

    • None of that has a thing to do with separation of powers, not one thing. Additionally all bottlenecks are about to be obliterated in the next few years by advancing technology. We don’t need or want the government regulating the internet, they have no authority to do so and it should never be given to them.

      Think obamacare, was insurance perfect before the dot gov touched it? No. Well, how well did it work out when they did?

  4. NY vs Florida.
    I’m in NY, and most of the upstate and half of the western portion of the state are fairly conservative. We just don’t have the population to sway state politics given the size of Manhatten, Albany and Buffalo. Conservative, but not Republican for the most part, so there’s no momentum or backing that can compete. But comparing that to most of Florida, Florida can be much more liberal, so I understand the concern.

    As far as schools… New Yorkers are brainwashed into thinking we have the best education. It’s quite the opposite. I was educated out of state, came to NY for college and was shocked how poorly educated most Highschool graduates were. It was astonishing, and they had no fucking idea, lol. They thought they were all geniuses. The Unions and the state keep pushing how much better the education is here, particularly vs the south which they characterize as a group of Bible-thumping inbred hillbillies… Complete ad hominem. But it’s a very relentless marketing campaign. The truth is the average NY Highschool graduate is probably two to three years of education behind most of the country, just comparing public education (which isn’t that good to begin with). Florida schools aren’t great, but he’s not losing anything by getting out of NY. Education is all about the student taking the initiative. That’s all that matters anywhere.

    • Hi Joseph, Hi Jack,

      thanks for the feed back both of you.

      I am further east on the island and your 100% correct about the city swaying state politics. I am not a conservative, but I find they are nicer people to live near – usually. Also really great point about the brainwashing around the school systems. really great point actually — thank you.

      To answer Jack’s questions – what else is there? you are right there is more — but I can’t put my finger on it. Being completely open, it’s fear – I just don’t know fear of what. The reality is I should be more afraid of staying in this place and grinding away. I have a tendency to over analyze everything for fear of making a bad decision. I think I’ll go back and listen to Episode 2256 today 🙂

      hey – great song of the day on this episode.

      • I should note you can take geese to 11lbs in about 11 weeks mostly on grass. But unless you are hatching your own goslings it is really expensive.

  5. Sorry Jack but regulating ISP is not the same as “regulating the internet”.

    Also, the states are suing in part because the FCC is trying to preempt states from enacting similar laws at the state level.  The FCC says they can do this because broadband is an interstate service and state rules conflict with the “federal policy of nonregulation.”

    It certainly is debatable whether the FCC ever had the authority to regulate ISPs under title II and ultimately congress should take up this issue. Since the ass clowns are too lazy to assert control the FCC goes in the direction of the Administration that happens to be in power.

    • Sorry none of that changes a thing I said.

      The fed does get supremacy on international services. Yes regulation of how ISPs provide service is regulation of the internet. You people that have bought into this net neutrality thing boggle my mind. Everything government touches it ruins, so lets have them touch the most awesome thing we have ever created, what could go wrong.

  6. Regarding butcher box:  my milage has varied.  Over the last few months i’ve received the wrong order and two orders that were thawed and too warm to accept, even though I picked up immediately when delivered.
    I work from home and typically pick up the orders within minutes delivery.  Based on my recent experience, there is no way my orders would be good if not immediately stored.  I’ve gone as far as doing unboxing pictures for each order and taking temps.  Some of the product hit 70 degrees.
    My last order was borderline.  If not immediately stored, it would have been toast.
    There customer service has been good, and the orders fixed to where I am happy with them.  However, they have not been dealing with the summer months well and I’m getting tired playing the temp lottery.  If they can keep it together in the cooler months, I may just suspend for the summer months.

  7. On the power being shut off. What many are mad about is large areas that had minimal wind were shut off. It seemed to be done by county not actual current weather conditions. Some areas did have high wind, just not sure if it justified the amount of lines turned off. 

     

  8. Even some public companies buy back their stock and become privately owned. One good sized company a son was working for was always timing various things involving money so the numbers would look good on their quarterly reports.  Later he was notified that they were buying back their stock, they were removing themselves from the public market so they could make wiser business decisions instead of whatever makes the stock holders happy in quarterly reports.

  9. Thanks for taking my question on meat ducks!  I’m glad you were able to give me some more realistic expectations.  The seven weeks to 11 pounds sounded waaay too good to be true.  And very interesting on the breast size being quite a bit smaller than a chicken.  You were spot on that the duck breast in the restaurant is exactly what I love, and if I went through all the work and only then found out that a duck breast is that small I probably would have been disappointed.

    Thanks for the advice!  I’ll give it more thought over the Winter and then make the call.