Just need to vent...

Yep my house in Monument, Colorado is just below 7,000 feet and visitors from sea-level places can have low O2 issues...we've even seen athletes at the Air Force football games pass out. Newbies build up extra red blood cells after about six months and don't have any effects but we have a more energy and stamina when we got down to sea-level areas! (It's a legal way to do blood doping...that's why the US Olympic Center is in Colorado Springs which is at 6,000 feet.)

 

NYC Speed Cameras 24/7: What You Need to Know – NBC New York

New York City to launch speed cameras 24/7 starting Monday night - CBS New York (cbsnews.com)

Once opposed to these but now am a proponent.

I don't see a downside- people who willfully disobey the law and endanger others are now tracked and fined as a consequence of their behavior.

"Last year, speed cameras gave out more than 4.3 million tickets, and that was when they were only on 16 hours a day, five days a week.
Imagine what's going to happen now"

"Monique Williams, whose father was killed by a hit-and-run driver in the Bronx last year, praised the city for getting the speed cameras working round the clock."

"They insist drivers who get a $50 speeding ticket learn their lesson and stop speeding. Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez says more than 75 percent never get a third ticket."

I would support these systems in our states large cities and expressways. I would double each offense 1st=$50, 2nd=$100, 3rd= $200 etc with the 5th = license forfeiture. These cameras actually track all traffic offenses but are most commonly called speed cameras.

 

Apple wanted to control software updates. Other carriers wanted to maintain control. And, in most cases, carriers are still in charge of updates for Android phones. And then there's all the bloatware. AT&T and Apple came to an agreement where Apple got what they wanted.

All but the Constitution.

Hmmm. I want an Ioniq 5, but only Hyundai makes them. Is that a monopoly? If you wanted to run iOS, then I'd think you'd want to have the best experience possible. That won't happen if they have to write the OS for hundreds of different hardware combinations. Then you're saddles with something like Windows. Corporations exist to make money. Arguably, the best way to make money is to make a product that meets or exceeds the customer's expectations. Apple has made some absolute crap products like the Magic Mouse, so they are n't even close to perfect. But their good stuff is really good. If they opened up to the IBM PC way of doing it, it wouldn't be nearly as good.

With good reason! Flash should have been dropped by everyone years earlier.

I use the cloud to store files in gobs of folders that I easily access with my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro.

Five!? I can't imagine trying to keep track of that.

Apple also uses eSIMs. But it's easy to get a sim at the airport when you land. So, convenient, but doesn't make up for all the security weaknesses, spotty OS updates, and lack of system integration between devices like Continuity, universal control, sidecar, etc.

Don't know much about that, but if we only do business with companies that never do anything wrong, we'll starve.

Agreed. It was great driving in England where other drivers were actually predictable. (Other than being on the wrong side of the road.)

 

England, and other European countries, do have more extensive driver training.

 

Jerry I can see your points... especially that the software company should control the hardware.

 

Keep Boycotting Apple, but at least do it for the right reasons - and for some, there ARE reasons:

They stopped doing that in 2009. AT&T HAS THEIR FAULTS (23 year employee) but "sound quality?" That's a new one.

Speaking of 'trump,' that's somewhat "counter-factual."
The Febes wanted the PASSWORD. The Apples offered to break into the phone, but the Febes refused, wanting a secret-key to get in....something that the Apples still insist that they don't have, have never had.
SO...what does my beloved government DO?
They hire somebody to crack the phone and then they bobble the snap.
Now?
Anybody can do it.
Getting into a dead person's phone isn't some weighty constitutional issue.
Dead people don't have rights under the USC.
Companies DO though, and as much as I find Apple's practices of offshoring and using "not-slave" labor to be objectionable - THEY do have intellectual property rights in the US.

Somewhat true but I stopped 'droiding when Samsung, the Googles, Lenovo, Xiaomi, Huawei became indistinguishable from Microsoft WRT 'bloatware.'
It IS possible (some think) to have a "true Android" experience but don't kid yourself into thinking that you're getting over on advertisers, governments, etc....
The reason that the Apples won my grudging respect is precisely BECAUSE they stood up to dot.gov when it comes to privacy concerns - or at least pretended to.

I use one every day. IYKYK.

See #4

These are edge cases. I personally only need 2 accounts on one phone.
Some of them may actually work better in the droid world.
That's not "boycotting" per se, but rather it's using the right tool for the right job.

I'm certainly not going to defend Jobs, because his personality type speaks for itself. (like those of Musk, Edison, and some say Ford.)
I'll stick with offshoring and being somewhat myopic about foreign labor rights as good reasons for Apple being the company that I hate to love and love to hate.
My first Apple Card purchase was for a Beretta M9, thinking that I would have a good reason to send the goofy little titanium card back to them.
The sale went through, as did those for some other weapons purchases, so I use their NFC and pay off the bill every month.
Apple gives me a 10% military discount, and they also have charged me $0.00 to date for using their card and paying for two phones over time.

As far as their stock?
Can't say.

Personally I think that they ought to eliminate the SEC, use their offices for low rent office space, and treat the stock market like the rigged Vegas tables that it always HAS been, but that's me being me.

Congress critters (on both sides of the aisle) have been getting rich for centuries off of inside info.
At least people like those mentioned above generate tax revenue....sometimes.

 

There was a year when I noticed sketchy things being done by both a local financial institution and by a mutual fund I had shares in.

The local outfit

These guys were up to some communication stunts that rubbed me the wrong way, like tripling their below-minimum-balance fee and sending an announcement that said the new fee was now "only" $6 without mentioning what it had been before, so you had to go look in your old records to see it was tripled. Also, they had invested heavily in some electronic banking tech, on the premise that it would have lower costs, and then they made that so by adding new fees for anybody who didn't use it. Sort of like standing in a line where a volunteer is requested, and having everyone else step backward.

I wrote to the board and the CEO and did get an audience with him, but it was just an hour of him repeating corporate-speak about how they had decided to "market" the changes that way and he was sorry if I might "feel" the descriptions were misleading. He knew it was BS, I knew it was BS, but I didn't have any particular power of stopping BS, so that was all that happened. Not very satisfying.

The mutual fund

These guys put a weird proposal on the proxy ballot two years in a row. They sent the ballot with the "management recommends approval" language and an explanation that described the proposal completely inside-out. Watch carefully:

• The fund's bylaws currently forbade investing in "other investment trusts or companies", except for one specific one. It was a blanket prohibition with just one narrow permission.
• The proposed bylaw change would have made it a blanket permission with only one narrow prohibition: there would be limits on how much could be invested in community development funds. No limit on anything else.
• The management recommendation said the purpose of the change was to permit investing in community development funds.

Yeah. Enough other shareholders must have noticed that, because it had failed on two proxy ballots already. Which is already pretty impressive ... most management-recommended things on proxy ballots just kind of sail through with 90+% of shares voted, right? How often do people read a proxy ballot and say "ummmm, nope." and do it two years in a row?

But management just kept reintroducing the proposal, apparently figuring one year it would be bound to go through.

I figured if I just wrote to the board and CEO about it, as I had with the local outfit, only the same thing would have happened; they'd have danced me around with some corporate-speak and changed nothing.

Now, the SEC runs a portal called EDGAR, where you can see all the documents any investment company is proposing to send you, in advance of SEC approving it to be actually sent. I watched on EDGAR until the new proposed proxy ballot was there, and sure enough, it had the weird proposal on it again.

So I picked up the phone and called SEC and asked whose job it would be to approve that proposed ballot. That turned out to be Eric. So I wrote Eric at the SEC a short clear letter showing the history of the proposal and what was wrong with the way the management recommendation portrayed it.

I got a phone call at my desk at work from the CEO of the fund, thanking me, and saying they had pulled the proposal from the ballot.

So that was more satisfying.

I wasn't a fly on the wall to hear any conversation he had had with Eric, but I would bet you he didn't even try to dance Eric around with any fluffy corporate-speak. Eric could just have repeated "well, your proposal does this, and your description says that, and I'll be happy to sign off as soon as you've fixed it."

And THAT is what makes regulators handy to have around.

 

Usually if I see any voltage shenanigans at an outlet I will take the cover off the panel and inspect it first.

Are all breakers seated then using a flashlight do I see any corrosion on any wire especially where the wire enters the breaker.
Do any wire rubber coating entering the breaker discolored from over heating of the wire sometimes wrong rated breaker. Could be too much current on too small a wire. If a wire is over heating you will see it at the breaker. There should never be any over heating of any wire in the panel.

Lastly I tighten every breaker wire connection and every neutral and bond wire and the bolts that hold the bond rail to the box.

If your scared of doing this hot turn the panel off.

Look closely at the 2 main power wires and the big bare ground wire from the meter entering the panel. They should have some anti corrosion goop on them where there socked down under the hex lugs. Check each incoming side to ground with a voltmeter they should be really close.

Lastly check lightning rod bond connections. Where I live they require a rod at the meter entrance and a bond to the copper water pipe in the house in addition to arc fault breakers. If bond wiring connections outside are corroded replace the clamp clean up the wiring and grease it.

Down here you won’t last long with poor grounds you will get hit repeatedly.

Then if panel looks cool I proceed to the outlet. If outlet incoming feed wire is flaky find the neighboring outlet it’s being fed from.

Many times with flaky outlet I find there’s a j box in the attic that’s feeding an outlet instead of jumping an outlet and that is a nightmare.Not code, Many times you can’t locate the box in the attic.

 

And make sure that any meter you are using on that side of the main breaker is marked "CAT IV" and your test leads are in good condition and have the same category marked on them.

Anywhere else in the panel (downstream of the main breaker), you can use CAT III or CAT IV, again with good-condition test leads also of CAT III or CAT IV.

What those category ratings are about isn't just the normal, expected voltage in the system, but rather what can happen if it surges, say because of a lightning strike in another part of town.

If an incoming surge exceeds the meter's CAT rating, it can initiate an arc. The surge is done after an instant, but the arc isn't, because once begun, it is now a dead short across the utility supply, and quickly enfolds you in its incandescent caresses. All of which happens too fast for anybody to do a thing about it.



That illustration comes from a Fluke doc, "ABCs of multimeter safety", that can be found, for example, here.

 

There is plenty of highway traffic higher than 9000 feet in Colorado. Though most of those ground drivers have had days to weeks or more to acclimate, unlike many aerial 'drivers' who commonly have had just hours since being stationed near sea level.

 

I used to ski at Keystone in my 30s and 40s. ~12,000 on down to ~9,000. No acclimation. "Those were the days my friend, you thought they'd never end ...."

Had friends who got sick there, had to leave.

 

Or Breckenridge, at 13,000 feet. Well, 12,998 (after climbing up a little bit from the highest lift) beneath the snow, but that still puts one's lungs above 13,000.

Those days haven't ended for us. I'm still skiing those areas in my 60s, such as earlier this year after recovering from covid-19. With a spouse at the very tail end of her 60s, i.e. 70 next season. But we always go there as road trips, skiing lower areas along the way. So we have already been spending full time at at least moderate altitude, with frequent exercise in high altitude, for a week before arriving at the higher Colorado hills, so we do have a bit of acclimation. Not nearly enough for the red blood cells to fully catch up, but much better than flying in from sea level to ski the same or next day.

I-70 is over 11,000 feet at the Eisenhower Tunnel, as are numerous other mountain passes on lower traffic highways.

 

Many athletes use "altitude tents" to kinda sorta simulate training at altitude.
It's pretty clear that they offer some theoretical advantage to bigger 02 pumpers.

 

It is interesting the effect different climate has on us humans.

I am familiar with Colorado climate having been stationed at Lowry AFB for two years and being able to explore the Rocky Mountains some.
Beautifull country and wonderful hiking. I was in my late 20's then and while challenging the hiking was certainly manageable with rest and hydration.

In the Southeast where I live temperatures approach 100 with 80 to 100 percent humidity it is almost unbearable to be in direct sunlight doing any physical exercise between the hours of 12 pm to 4 pm during late July and August

In the southwest US there is another challenging type of climate in Texas- New Mexico where an individual can become dehydrated in a short time. At Lackland AFB going through basic training during the Viet Nam war they took the training very seriously because they needed the troops but even with that urgency there were several days when it was deemed too dangerous to do any outdoor activity and they would put up the white flags calling off outdoor training.

The coldest I have ever been in my life was in northeast Nebraska on a February day, the extreme cold coupled with wind would prevent you from taking a breath unless you had some type of facial covering to add a little bit of warmth to the air as you were inhaling.

It is fun to consider the different outdoor environments we deal with here in the US.

 

Those flags were White, Green, Yellow, Red and Black during my boot camp...probably now unified under some OSHA rule.
One of the first lies (of many) uttered by my recruiter was the fact that if I trained in Orlando, FL during the summer then it would be lot easier since Orlando is almost always in "Black Flag" weather in July during which time outside physical training was not allowed.
Unfortunately, NS Orlando had a number of very large buildings the insides of which we could run, jump, and play.

They were not complete sadists.
They opened some doors and windows sometimes.
We also had some rather intense training inside our barracks.
Our company commander's stated goal was to shut down the A/C and raise the heat and humidity inside to the point where condensed water would run down the walls.
He called it "making it rain inside."
It didn't work, of course but not for the lack of trying.

Graduation ceremonies during the summer months would also feature sailors falling out - or "face bouncing" if they locked their knees while at attention, despite numerous warnings not to do so.
There were always "voluntolds" from another company to serve as stretcher bearers and the obligatory face bounce pool. Mostly, it wasn't REALLY face bouncing. It was more like a knee-buckling slow collapse to the grass, very much like a modern building demolition.
HOWEVER (comma!) every now and then...somebody would try to tuff their way through it, and go all the way out.
I would have gone to NS Orlando ANYWAY though, since our sister company was a SISTER company, Orlando then being the only training facility for female sailors to go to boot camp.
THAT made some of the cooperative training between our companies a little more interesting.

 

I believe our flag colors where the same as yours - I had just forgotten.

It would be interesting to see how Basic Training has changed. I experience it in the 1970's - they may classify some of the training back then as abusive currently.

 

Ya THINK??!!

One has to remember that the draft has ended, and so it's an all volunteer force now.
That changes things.
The worst thing they can do is let you go home, and in the long run that's for the better.
Better for the service.
Better for the individual.
You re-enter civilian life with the wrong paperwork and it might be a little harder to get another gig, but that's about all they can do if you jump ship.

Mostly, Boot Camp is a between-the-ears sort of thing.
Mental toughness has ALWAYS been a more sought after quality than somebody that you have to bounce off of a few walls to meet standards.

If you can do it.
So will your troops.

 

That looked far too weak and flimsy to be a hypobaric chamber, so I had to look them up. It turns out that they are hypoxia tents, using oxygen concentraters in reverse to maintain a controlled oxygen partial pressure similar to a selected choice of elevation in the range of about 5k to 10k or 12k feet.

Somehow I'm imagining a setup for a murder mystery ...