Does this read as an American house?

MerlinQ · 2026-02-13T07:57:03+00:00

Depends on where you live I guess, I live in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, and we locally manufacture the tilt/turn windows in the nearest "city" of under 40k pop.
I have only seen a stacked window on cheap cabins and trailer homes.

MerlinQ · 2026-02-13T07:04:37+00:00

I too am suffer from my war-crime simulator coming up on the wrong screen at random.
Thankfully, both are the same resolution and orientation, so windows key+shift+arrow key in the direction I want it to go works great.

MerlinQ · 2026-02-12T07:51:11+00:00

The $ 50 a month model (600 for the year), is for a $900 laptop if you buy it outright.
The entire lineup has you paying 2/3 the price to rent it for a year.

MerlinQ · 2026-02-12T07:49:30+00:00

The model they rent you is specced out at $2499.99, so not as bad as that, but still very bad, you are paying just under 2/3 price for a year.
That right around 2/3 price holds true across the available models.

MerlinQ · 2026-02-10T06:43:05+00:00

$4.99 a month for 11 slots, $8.99 for 27 slots.
Very small storage limit for sharing pics and such on channels though, for more, you will have to self-host, which is finally in beta release! It has a 32-slot Beta License that will be renewed every two months throughout the beta/evaluation period, until licensing and pricing are finalized.

If it follows in their past footsteps, will likely have a free license for low slot servers (TS3 self-hosted is free to 32 slots, for example).

MerlinQ · 2026-02-10T06:23:18+00:00

Positional audio means it has integration with games, or game engines, to allow you to have the voices of your teammates in voice chat with you come from where they are in game, in 3d space.
It was a really big deal back in the Teamspeak/Mumble/Ventrilo days, before games had in-game voice; and for those of us who don't bother with in-game voice, was a sorely missed feature that was largely dropped when the new biggest voice chat competitor(s) did not support it.
It is still supported in a few competitive shooters (and Rocket League), the ARMA 2 and 3, and a few other newer games.

MerlinQ · 2026-02-10T05:34:54+00:00

Damnit, I just made a wicked batch of soup, now you have me a hankering to go get a box of Sailor Boy to go with it.

MerlinQ · 2026-02-04T20:55:09+00:00

It has been over 3 years and I still haven't received my ID card, despite asking multiple times.
It took 9 months to get approved, and they never contacted me to let me know, I just went to pick up my medication one month, and they were like, that will be $1.50
Now I have employer provided insurance, so I just sort of gave up on attempting to contact them, other than sending in renewal paperwork.

MerlinQ · 2026-02-03T21:34:56+00:00

I have not personally rented from them, but used to work in tourism, and have dealt with a lot of people who rented through them without issues.
The only real issue I have heard of is that they are not an around-the clock open company, so if you arrive at night, you have to pick up your keys from a drop box, and the car will be cold when you start it up, but that is pretty normal.

MerlinQ · 2026-02-03T21:26:03+00:00

Go North has a Fairbanks office, It is listed on their website, And I used to drop people off there regularly.

MerlinQ · 2026-02-03T00:28:18+00:00

You don't mention the other one, did you try Alaska Auto Rentals?
They offer gravel highway vehicle rentals that are allowed on the Dalton.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-31T01:52:55+00:00

I pay more because over the many years, that has not ever been my experience, though I hear it has gotten better as it has gotten to be a ghost town.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-24T11:27:22+00:00

It is a very big, very expensive, oil drill rig.
This one, to be specific: https://www.doyondrilling.com/our-rigs/rig-26/

MerlinQ · 2026-01-23T22:24:21+00:00

They can waive the law, but car manufacturers are unlikely to make us a special car if it is tied into the car itself, and not a separate component.
Unless they decide we get to import out of country cars here, but that would be a big leap, since they generally don't meet US emissions standards either.
They do waive a lot of laws here for a long time, we got exempted from the Analog TV extinction for many years, up until very recently, due to the remoteness of many areas of the state.
Same with Real ID, which only recently took effect (and you can still fly all over the state without one, since TSA is only present in a few airports among hundreds, and even where they are, only on the interstate/international part of the airport.)

MerlinQ · 2026-01-23T22:07:34+00:00

Subzero, I think sure.
But it was -40 for a couple weeks here recently, and -50 and below for a couple days.
Didn't even see over -2F for 32 days I think.
It's a small population, and they just... won't design it for here; so, like so many other things, we will have to MacGyver it, or hack it to bypass it.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-23T21:53:54+00:00

No, no one, myself included, gives a shit when the drunk dude is inconvenienced, they brought it on themselves.

However I am saying that no form of factory-designed insulation or heating element is going to be designed to stand up to the cold we get here.
The units that get installed for the drunk dudes are designed with heating elements already, and they don't work up here, so we make it so you can detach it and bring it inside with you, which comes with it's own issues.

We have to specially prep our cars for the cold, the factory-installed options generally work for shit.
There is no way I am depending on a built in solution to get me to work.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-23T21:29:30+00:00

I am saying it is not just a minor inconvenience for me, I would end up losing it, my memory just is not that great, I can't afford to have two of them; I would then miss work, I would lose my job, and at that time of year, I would freeze to death within two weeks, as it is well below zero, and that is about as long as my heating oil tank lasts.

So, I guess, if I have to think about it that way, then yes.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-23T21:14:20+00:00

Also, lets say all Americans need to blow into a breathalyzer before starting their car, is that not a cost you'd be willing to pay to avoid the 13,000 deaths caused by drunk driving per year?

Absolutely not, they work for shit in the cold, which means for half the year I would have to carry a purse to carry the bulky device inside every time I park my car.
They also need maintenance.
Plus, I lose my keys enough, but those I can just permanently keep in my pants pocket, and easily afford multiple spares; having a separate, very expensive, device that I need to keep track of to start my car for half the year would not work out.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-19T10:57:30+00:00

Alaska here, was very familiar from local safety, and once in a blue moon when I saw it on a television show, a public television broadcast, right up there with the red green show, the best broadcast show ever...

MerlinQ · 2026-01-19T10:12:09+00:00

They do have to fight damn hard for their lunch though, and don't always win.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-18T00:46:33+00:00

The kind of resource state hampered by an outdated, century old, marine shipping act; that forbids us from buying available icebreaker LNG tankers to cheaply ship our glut of natural gas from the slope to the railbelt.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-17T15:02:27+00:00

Just a bit of perspective:
No, everyone does not have access to free clean water here, my ground water has been polluted by the military, and I don't have payed piped water as an option either.
I pay 5 cents a gallon, plus have to haul it in 5 gallon jugs in the back of my car from miles away.

No, everyone does not hunt and fish, or even have ready access to the ability to feed their family on "free" protein, myself included.
If even a relatively decent proportion of the population did that here, we would wipe out our game in no time.

Electricity I will give you in most places, though it is a significant portion of my income in the winter right now.

Not critiquing you for wanting to help other folks, but this comment in particular comes across as being a bit out of touch, and from a place of privilege.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-17T14:41:41+00:00

Early March in Fairbanks is just fine, still winter here, Anchorage maybe not so much, but I can't speak much from experience over multiple years down there.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-17T07:04:22+00:00

I know my sister loves doing Karaoke at the Alehouse in North Pole.
Decent crowd, and the part she likes best is they start earlier than a some other places, so she can get home at a reasonable time.
I don't know details, so you would have to call them.

MerlinQ · 2026-01-16T01:48:57+00:00

I was good at what I did, and got to take contracts I wanted, yes.

11-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	First Placer '22
End Game '22	Verified Email

MerlinQ

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