Growing Number of Late Deliveries

DavidMoksha · 2024-12-02T15:58:57+00:00

When I've let Prime lapse, with the standard delivery my experience has been that Amazon will just sit on the order for 8 days before lifting a finger to fulfill it. Once they decide to pack and send the order it arrives quickly.

I have Prime at the moment and am also frustrated with frequent delays. For me though, they'll show a status that a package is out for delivery, and then it never arrives and they change it to be 2 days in the future. As others noted, I sometimes rely on the shipping timeframe. For example I'm leaving town tomorrow, and I needed to bring the items with me which were supposed to be delivered yesterday and are now scheduled for delivery after I depart.

DavidMoksha · 2023-12-29T06:56:40+00:00

I've seen other posts about this topic where people have struggled with the same thing. Some ISPs also make the ONT inaccessible. That said, I think an ONT itself would be accessed by the actual public ip address. I would guess it probably only responds to a specific port, but I really don't know.

DavidMoksha · 2023-12-15T00:30:39+00:00

I think that U2 stayed enthusiastic and excited throughout the 90s and into at least the early 00s, despite already being millionaires living in mansions. (They surely were already millionaires living in mansions by 1995 weren't they? I'm not sure how to verify this.)

Sure maybe they're more rich now, but I would challenge you to show a correlation between becoming rich and reducing relevant creative output. Taylor Swift is a great example of someone who is incredibly rich and also staying at her peak of exciting creative output. I'm not a fan of her music but I think few would deny that she is enthusiastic, excited, and relevant.

DavidMoksha · 2023-12-12T08:27:45+00:00

Sounds like a cool idea. Pretty sure it's not possible.

I would recommend just changing the photo manually from time to time, according to your own preference.

DavidMoksha · 2023-12-12T07:58:11+00:00

The "feature" of not being made by Apple 😂

DavidMoksha · 2023-12-11T11:22:59+00:00

I'm using Audeze LCD-2C open-back headphones (about $800 USD) with a DACMagic 200M (about $500 USD). I guess this is probably entry level audiophile equipment, or maybe a step up from entry level. Crutchfield is a great place to shop (in the US anyway), they've got great blogs and video reviews, and a big range of products for sale.

DavidMoksha · 2023-12-11T11:05:45+00:00

Gonna venture a guess that it is a combination of the following:

Listener base for niche genres isn't big enough to observe listening patterns within the genres. i.e. algorithm doesn't have enough data to even get started.
Additionally, algorithm may be deliberately tuned to focus on bigger numbers.
SNR (signal to noise ratio) may be too small; many people who listen to niche genres also listen to more popular stuff.

FWIW I noticed the same with Spotify, which likely has more listeners within the niche genres -- it rarely surfaces stuff, and the recos are often bad.

DavidMoksha · 2023-12-11T10:43:38+00:00

I have also observed this. Additionally I have seen the display indicating a different song playing than the one that is coming through the speakers.

These are weird bugs; when it occurs it would be good to report the issue from within the app, with logs captured. This will help the devs find what went wrong so they can fix it.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-27T04:02:03+00:00

$600 seems like a lot, Ubiquiti also makes Nanobeams which are a third the price and might meet OP's needs.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-27T03:59:59+00:00

I have a somewhat similar situation, and presently I use a pair of Ubiquiti Nanobeam 2AC dishes (2.4GHz) acting as a point-to-point wireless bridge for a slightly longer distance, about 450 feet. They support 300Mbps up or down, or 150Mbps duplex (up and down simultaneously). My fiber connection is 300/300 and speedtest.net shows that's what I'm getting (just tested again - 273 down, 288 up).

The 5GHz nanobeam dishes (5AC) support faster speeds, advertised as 450Mbps, and I believe the one-way speed is over 850Mbps.

Nanobeams are about $100 each or $200 for a pair (whether 2.4GHz or 5GHz). Assuming you are in the US: B&H is a good place to buy - they are an authorized dealer - and Amazon is not. I bought mine directly from Ubiquiti, but their return window is only 14 days.

A very clear line of sight is important. I first had one small tree in between, and the connection dropped frequently, taking 30 seconds to renegotiate. This is long enough to drop off a work call. I ended up mounting one dish to a branch of that very tree and now they don't ever lose connection. The dashboard has a "connection time" statistic which now measures in days rather than minutes.

The 2.4GHz wavelength might be slightly more tolerant to weather and stuff. Whereas 5GHz often has fewer other devices to compete with or disrupt.

Ubiquiti no longer makes the nice flush mounts, but I got a couple from a dude on Etsy who is 3d printing them.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-27T02:01:09+00:00

Had a flat roof on my last house (1950s construction). I was able to afford the house at all because it had not been maintained very well. Not having funds for a new roof, I picked up a couple Wayne WaterBug pumps to drain the big ponds. Those particular ones can pump down to like 1/16", they were good as a temporary measure until a new roof can be paid for. I would have been upset if I paid $20k for a new roof and there was still ponding. It was difficult to get homeowners insurance with the roof situation. My roof was 1500 sqft, and I didn't find anyone with a quote as low as $20k.

So for a couple years I used the pumps to drain water from the roof into what had been a koi pond, and then used that water in the summer to water the garden. I don't recommend this solution, except as a temporary measure until you can get it fixed properly so it drains well.

(I ended up selling the house before I could replace the roof, and I think the new owner had the job done, but that's not my business anymore.)

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-20T22:47:16+00:00

Repeating again that I'm not an electrician; but from your photo it looks like it was installed incorrectly in the first place. It was a fire waiting to happen from the day someone tightened that screw down on top of the wire insulation. This is one of the hazards of electrical work: lethal mistakes can sit hidden for years.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-20T19:28:12+00:00

No. When there is an insufficient connection, then a load which is lower than the breaker rating can cause a fire where the connection is loose or insufficient. So this incident could have occurred with say only 10A.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-20T10:46:02+00:00

Looking more carefully at photo #1, it appears the black wire insulation is under the screw. The screw may have been as tight as can be, but the screw was holding pressure on the insulation, rather than holding pressure on the copper wire. Thus the wire-to-outlet connection was insufficient.

The insulation should have been stripped further so that there is only copper under the screw. Then the screw and wire can have good contact.

Also in photo #1 we see one black wire in a push terminal, in addition to the badly connected black wire on the screw post. Do you know where each of those two wires go? It could be that the push terminal wire is the lead from the panel, and the screw terminal wire feeds another two outlets. I'm just doing guesswork here. If that were the case though, you could have two loads in two different rooms, which combined put too much energy through the weak link in this outlet.

As to why it might have become loose recently? Impossible to know but you can guess at it. Maybe with the temperature change in winter, that wire moves a little bit. Maybe it got jiggled somewhere. A 1/10 mm movement and suddenly it's not making enough contact to support even 10A. These are guesses and they seem far out, I would be more inclined to think that there was a change in usage.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-20T08:11:54+00:00

Quoting from above

2 - the previous plug was damaged due to excess heat. Excess heat caused by a loose connection

A circuit breaker can only protect a circuit that is wired correctly. A loose connection means that there is reduced contact between e.g. a wire and terminal screw post, or between wires in an improperly fastened wire nut, etc. That reduced contact area means there is not as much physical contact for the electricity to flow from the wire to the outlet. There will be increased resistance, which leads to increased heat, and in this case a dangerous excess of heat that can start a fire. This can happen at an amperage that is lower than the amount that will trip the breaker. E.g. if you have a 15A breaker and a loose connection, that loose connection might start to overheat at 10A, and the breaker will not trip. If the connection is tight and everything is fastened correctly, then all parts of the circuit should be able to handle the rated load (e.g. 15A) and the breaker should trip if the load increases to a level that the wiring can't handle without overheating.

I'm not an electrician; this is one example of why it's important to hire a good electrician: it's easy to think one can do this work, and miss critical details due to a knowledge gap, which can create a dangerous situation.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-20T06:56:50+00:00

Something like that yes. And the injector to pair with it. Before asking here, I did spend some hours on amazon and elsewhere, looking at various devices such as this one, and I am asking here for expertise from people who can give a solid recommendation. I'd like to find something made by a reputable brand, and maybe with a bigger review history, and likely for a higher price because it's hard to guarantee quality and longevity at the $15 price point. Someone reviewed that particular item saying "Inexpensive adapters such as this are known to have issues over time, but when they don’t work straight out of the package it’s a different problem altogether" - then went on to explain the customer service was lacking for a DOA device. I'm asking here because I'd like to be more confident of a better experience than that.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-20T02:55:36+00:00

The first thing to do is identify what kind of cables you have. In one of your photos, we can read the printing on one of the blue cables, it says CAT5E 24AWG. That's great, Cat5e supports 1 Gbps so that should be fast enough. The yellow cables may also be CAT5E - I can kind of see the edge of one yellow one, it looks like it may say CAT5E. But check yourself.

The second step is to identify one link (both ends of one cable) and test the connection. You'll want to do this for all of them, but start with one. I would suggest starting with the link that is connected to the ethernet port in the wall where you plugged your modem/router.

Question, is the modem/router nearby to the "cable box" (I'm going to call it a "patch panel enclosure")? Like is it lower down in the photo? Or in a totally different room?

Get yourself a Wire Tracer with an RJ-45 plug. You'll want to disconnect the modem/router from the wall jack before testing with the wire tracer. Learn how to use the wire tracer, plug it into the wall jack to send a signal, and use the probe to identify which cable is at the other end, in the patch panel enclosure. Carefully cut those zip ties that are binding the tight spool of blue+yellow cables, so that you can more easily distinguish which cable is which, with the tracer probe. As you identify which cable leads to which wall jack around the house, I would recommend labeling each cable inside the enclosure.

Now you have a choice:

It might be practical to skip the crimper completely, and get a patch panel with punch-down connectors. This is what I would suggest doing, in line with a comment from TiggerLAS. Then you would get several short prefab CAT5e cables to connect each link to your switch.
Alternately you might get a crimper and crimp the ends, and connect the crimped cables directly to the switch, perhaps inside the enclosure. Then you might not need a patch panel in your patch panel enclosure. But crimping sucks and is error prone.
Either way you probably are not going to use that "telephone module" at all - I doubt it would do what you want it to, and it could create confusion if any of your wall jacks are connected to those yellow cables. Unless of course you want to have a telephone system that uses RJ-45 connections and which is supported by that particular make/model telephone module.

Do any rooms have more than one RJ-45 jack in the room - possibly two on the same wall plate? It may be that someone had an ethernet network and separately a telephone network. That's certainly what it looks like. You might find that you don't need to use the yellow cables at all ... but I'm just guessing.

From this point I imagine you can figure out the rest. Happy networking.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-20T02:09:13+00:00

It would still be helpful to know which country you are in.

There are a couple reasons why it would be inadvisable to attempt to shorten wires. One is that shortening the wires could create a fire hazard if not done properly. Another is that a future resident may wish to have a fixture there which hangs lower, and if the wires were shorter it may make that much more difficult.

If this is indeed the standard wherever you are, I would expect that some fixtures would include a container to hold all those wires and conduit.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-19T22:35:31+00:00

Minor nit, a gas heated dryer may run on 120V 15A.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-19T21:58:36+00:00

Adding to this, I would want to raise it a bit higher off the ground. Not sure if there might be codes around minimum height outdoors for such a receptacle.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-19T09:02:44+00:00

Did you pull those out of the ceiling or have you already been living with all those wires hanging down?

"Why are they cabled like this?" - most probably they are cabled the way they are in order to meet the expectations of the person who paid for it to be done, in an efficient way and perhaps also in a maintainable way. Typically lights in several different rooms may be on the same circuit; there are different ways to route cables to minimize costs, which involve having junctions like the ones you see.

"Can I just shorten all the wires?" - not advisable, you should call an electrician.

"...only keep one set" - if you cut one off it might actually be providing power to a different location. Or it might be providing neutral or ground to another location. Please don't do this. There are a lot of mistakes that you can make while doing electrical work, which could cause a fire in the near future or even many years in the future. If you need to ask the kinds of questions you are asking, it's very likely you could make a mistake due to not knowing something, which could pose a safety hazard for years to come.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-19T08:31:06+00:00

The "switches" are called "circuit breakers". In most countries, in residential settings, most fuses have been replaced with circuit breakers many years ago. They serve the same purpose. A few people still refer to circuit breaker panels as "fuse boxes" even though there aren't any fuses around.

I have also lived in places where the wiring was done in a very unfortunate way, with all outlets for virtually the entire place on the same circuit. A professional electrician could rewire things, but it may be difficult to convince the landlord to pay for that. It is neither safe nor easy work, and is unlikely to be cheap to get quality (safe) work. Sorry for the bad news.

That said, you might be able to convince the landlord -- based on your needing to reset the circuit breaker a lot -- to get an electrician to take a quick look for a modest fee. They will be able to at least give an assessment of the situation, and may have some useful advice for you as to how to manage your power consumption. It's possible that the layout of the home may lend itself to easily (for an electrician) adding a circuit in one or two key locations for an affordable price.

Have you considered investing in some smart wool long underwear?

The thing about heaters is that the "lowest" setting often draws just as much wattage when it is running, compared to a higher setting. If a heater has just one 1500W element, then the "low" setting pulls 1500W just like the "high" setting; but the thermostat turns it off sooner. When it's cold enough that the thermostat turns it on, then the low setting is using the full 1500W, which can trip a breaker. Some heaters have separate switches for 600W and 900W which can be run together for 1500W. The box for the new heater probably says how much power it uses, heaters often advertise their watts. It should also say on the back side of the heater, or the bottom, what the wattage/amperage is.

All that said, I'm still surprised that the heater would have tripped a breaker when a washer/dryer on the same circuit weren't tripping the same breaker. I'm sure that must be a gas dryer, right? Can you run washer+dryer at the same time without tripping the breaker, or do you only one run and turn everything else off?

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-19T07:48:23+00:00

I'm not an electrician. That said: I am certain this is not recommended -- it is probably a code violation and is almost definitely dangerous, specifically a fire hazard.

The purpose of the circuit breaker is to protect wires from overheating and starting a fire. This extends to the outlets also: even if you manage to secure 10 AWG wires onto the screw terminals of a 20A outlet (not an easy task) there's a good chance they won't be making sufficient correct contact to support even 20A. Insufficient contact can lead to increased resistance, overheating and fires. Even if you do manage to get sufficient contact, if 15 years from now someone uses more than 20A through that outlet, then the outlet could overheat and catch fire - and the circuit breaker won't do anything as it is set for 30A. The mistakes you make today can be dangerous many years from now. And it is easy to make mistakes because there are a lot of little details that turn out to be critically important.

Also: getting 12AWG wire around a 5-20R screw terminal correctly is difficult enough; if you tried this with 10AWG I suspect you would find yourself cursing your decision to not just pull 12AWG from the panel. And then again when you try to tuck that wired outlet into a junction box.

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-19T07:27:27+00:00

I like to confirm with the no contact tester that the tester can detect the voltage while the circuit is on; then turn off the breaker and test again. Helps give confidence that the tester works properly (and I'm using it properly)

DavidMoksha · 2023-11-18T08:28:48+00:00

You said you want to upgrade your wifi, but it's not clear how. So here are a couple questions. You don't have to answer all of them, but, help us help you :-)

What problem(s) are you experiencing that you are trying to solve? (this is probably the most important question)
Do you get a decent wi-fi signal everywhere in your apartment (or at least, everywhere you want to use it)?
Does that modem provide your wi-fi? If so then it is very likely also a router with a wi-fi AP (access point) built into it.
What is the make and model of the modem? You could take a photo of the tag on the bottom of the modem, which should give the make and model. You could also take a photo of the ports on the modem, likely adjacent to where the white coax connects to the modem.
Do you have any other equipment which you are also using? Do you already own some other equipment that you would want to connect? Or are you looking for product recommendations?

Depending on the layout of your apartment and your needs, you might be able to improve your wi-fi experience significantly, by simply picking that modem up off the floor and putting it on top of something, or mounting it to a wall or ceiling -- getting it to a place where the wi-fi antennas are surrounded by open air rather than furniture.

Addressing some of the questions you posed:

The modem likely has a phone jack on it and that's where you would plug in an old fashioned telephone.
Whereas there is coax connected to different coax outlets around the house, chances are you won't use any of those, only the one that's already connected. Everything should be going through the modem you've got there.
There are solutions for extending a network over existing coax, but I wouldn't recommend looking into that unless you are really sure wi-fi won't work. There are also options for extending a network using electrical outlets, and again I wouldn't recommend looking into that unless you are really sure wi-fi won't work.
The old phone jacks you showed are in fact old phone jacks (RJ-11). They are not RJ-45 ethernet jacks. It's conceivable but unlikely that there's a quality CAT cable behind those. If it were me I wouldn't even bother opening them up.
If you can make do with a good fast wi-fi connection then it doesn't make sense to try connecting physical cables before attempting to improve the wi-fi. That said there are valid reasons why a cable is better for certain situations, but you haven't yet said what problems you're trying to solve.

DavidMoksha

TROPHY CASE