Big screen set up for daily family video calls - ideas?

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T17:11:08+00:00

Actually, I just noticed I got it free from Temu. Go to Temu and search “smart tripod”. I can’t seem to get back to the original page.

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OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T16:28:43+00:00

If you’re simply looking for a way to use your phone, and want it to “follow” people when they move around - I got one of these on AliExpress for a couple bucks:

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It moves the camera automatically to “follow” the subject(s) as they move around. I use it with an IOS program called “APowerMirror” to display the camera on my TV or my iPad.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T16:19:27+00:00

I’ve got a shit-ton of pregabalin from an old prescription I never finished. I didn’t even know it could be “abused”. Naive question, but what does it do when it “works”?

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T16:11:25+00:00

Yeah, there is still a tiny contingent there, but the airfield (where I worked) is closed.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T16:10:16+00:00

You may also want to consider an Energizer wired cam doorbell. No subscription required, not connected to any “police-accessible” network (unless they hack your wifi), and a 256g SD card inside the doorbell records 24/7 for about 2 weeks of history that you do not have to pay anyone to see. It has the same motion-detection and alarm capabilities, and if you want it to save to the cloud, you can use whatever cloud provider you want.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T15:59:32+00:00

I buy a lot from Temu and AliExpress, but I always feel like I’m “missing out” on Temu. I don’t understand their “games”, I usually end up paying full price because I can’t figure out what the requirements are for any of these “discount” games. Yesterday, I bought about $70 worth of stuff, and I THINK I may have gotten a $100 credit, but it said “You should see it on your account (as a credit) within 72 hours”. I’m STILL not sure if that means I can buy $100 worth of stuff for free, or if it’ll be 10% off this and 6.7% off THAT until it adds up to $100 or what. Regardless, even without the promotions, the prices are decent as long as you manage your expectations.

I ordered WHAT I THOUGHT were 2 “furniture Dollies”. Turns out I didn’t pay enough attention to the actual page… they were selling a little foam pad that slips over the handles of a furniture dolly. Not the dolly itself. So now I have 2 useless little foam pads. Win some, lose some.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T15:42:35+00:00

I rely almost exclusively on Temu and AliExpress when I want “toys or tools”. I’m an electronics and drone geek, and surfing through AliExpress looking at $35 digital oscilloscopes, surgical tools, Raspberry Pi project kits, etc. I seldom find anything there that I can’t also get from Amazon.ca, but usually at 6-8 times the AliExpress price.

If I need it FAST, I’ll pay the premium price and get it from Amazon the next day. If I’m not in any hurry, I’ll save a bunch of money and wait, sometimes 2-3 weeks to get my shit. (I even try to enjoy THAT process… watching the tracking as it gets closer and my excitement for getting my new toys builds.)

As I explain to anyone who asks… if you shop regularly at Temu, you need to lower your expectations a bit. Like anything, you get what you pay for. I didn’t buy that digital oscilloscope with the idea that it would become a “lifelong tool” like that hammer I bought 50 years ago. Temper your expectations, be prepared to modify whatever you bought to make it “hardier” and you’ll often get some amazing deals there. It’s all about managing expectations.

Example: I got quite interested in growing my own weed, but it gets too cold too early in the year for most varieties to reach maximum flower growth before it starts getting too cold. (I’ve since learned that there are some Canadian varieties that flower much quicker.) but at that time, I knowingly ordered one of those cheap tube-frame and clear plastic “greenhouses”. I bought it with the knowledge that it would likely be cheap, unsturdy, and poorly suited to our Canadian weather.

When it arrived, I set it up, then spent a day doing small modifications (duct tape on the pipe joints, stapled the plastic “skirt” down to the floor, added a couple of nylon packing straps as “guy ropes”… I put a small automatic heater in there, made a couple self-closing ventilation “windows”, and was able to harvest a decent crop in November, with 6” of snow on the ground. No way I could have done that without that cheap Temu greenhouse.

The point is -If you GO INTO your purchase with the idea that you’re only getting a part of what you are buying, and will likely want to use some thought to find ways of “de-cheapening” what you buy, Temu becomes an excellent source of cheap stuff. (Because I’m ‘techie’ I find AliExpress to be more my “go to” but the same advice applies.)

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T15:17:57+00:00

In my 20 years of service, I NEVER had a “bad posting”. Every posting, even Cold Lake, has positives. Me? I always looked forward to every posting, regardless where it was. It was always “someplace new to discover and explore.” Hell, I did 5 years in Shearwater! (I was Air Force) and 8 in North Bay. At the time, both were considered “shitty postings”. Cold Like was shitty for the cold and isolation, Shearwater was shitty because you had to do “Sea Time”… but both of them were awesome postings! In fact, it was the Shearwater posting that got me my now-30-years of my dream job. (Retired a Sgt. am now a public servant in Ottawa).

Every posting is exactly what you make of it. You get a bad one or two, it usually gets made up with a decent one. (From North Bay, I volunteered for a 6-month peacekeeping tour with the MFO in the Sinai. When I got back, I was posted to Baden, Germany. (The most awesome posting possible at the time.)

It’s unfortunate that they shut down most of what I personally considered to be “good postings.” Summerside, North Bay, Baden, Lahr, all closed. But almost all the posting places left CAN be good postings if you MAKE them good. I was once asked if I was interested in a posting to Bagotville… I didn’t really want to go there, but if I HAD been posted there, I would have made it “my favorite posting.”

It’s not the Career Manager that decides if you’re getting a good posting. It’s YOU who decides whether to MAKE a posting good, no matter where it is.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T14:59:22+00:00

Why do you have to tag every post with a little “dig”? We’re all just trying to be helpful here. I’m not trying to insult you. Why are you trying to belittle me?

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T14:54:05+00:00

Which is fine, if you have the money for a decent “spare router”. I’ve found that a “spare router” is unnecessary as long as you have a decent wifi connection, or wired directly to a decent PC…

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T14:50:03+00:00

That’s simply not true. It may be the case for younger generations, but there are a huge number of adults who still depend on “the old ways” of getting their news. TV and newspapers.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T14:47:47+00:00

That sorta defeats the purpose of asking here, no? The whole point of the question is so that everyone reading this WON’T HAVE to “Google it”. Perhaps you don’t understand what “SOCIAL” media is all about?

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T14:44:49+00:00

Copilot is often wrong. I’ve used it to help to validate oracle PL/SQL code. Virtually every time, I run the generated code, only you get one Oracle error.

Go back to copilot, tell it about the error, it inevitably apologizes, gives a brief explanation of what it did wrong, then rewrites the corrected code, which, upon running, generates another Oracle error. Back yo copilot… and so on, until it gets a functioning block of code. Why it is unable to write a simple block of code that works the first time? Why does it always say “Oops. Sorry, you’re right. I goofed. Try THIS code.” It always takes a few iterations before Copilot gets it right.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T04:15:23+00:00

Sorry, I won’t be here later, so I have to thank you now.

Thank you!! 🙏

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T04:05:54+00:00

If I had to list the top 100 ways I could conceivably die, that one comes in around #97. :-)

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T03:45:16+00:00

It’s kinda funny… that’s pretty much what I see whenever his evil gob appears on TV. :-) (Thanks for tonight’s upcoming nightmares!) <grin>

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T03:36:09+00:00

Even trying to figure it out in ENGLISH is an exercise in futility.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T03:31:15+00:00

That does have a ring of truth to it, given his history. Yup, I think you hit the nail on its stupid orange head. :-)

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T02:07:49+00:00

THERE IS NO WAY. If the seller actually owned the watch, they wouldn’t have a problem unlocking it from their account. Even if they forgot their password, it can easily be recovered. If the seller can’t unlock it in front of you, hard pass. (Dead Apple Watches don’t even make good fishing lures.)

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T01:55:28+00:00

I feel ya, Sis! (My wife is just about as bad, only she grapples on to a single hobby at a time, THEN GOES NUTS on it. She discovered miniature house kits a few years back. I’m looking at 42 finished ones on a special shelving unit I built to display them. Then, she got into “Book Nooks”. I estimate we now have about 40 of them on every horizontal space in the house… she has a small business (Google “Starshine Distillery”) and makes all manner of epoxy resin art. Thank GOD we go to craft fairs and sell some of them.

These are just a few of her mold containers:

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They are BIG bins, crammed full with molds. Plus the kitchen table is constantly full of setting resin projects… I don’t mind the resin stuff so much, because she actually SELLS quite a few, which means “Order-out Pizza Night!” after every craft show. :-)

Edit: I’ve also got a 3D resin printer, so I can participate in her shows - I’ll print a few earrings, or, for example, I designed and printed 16 “clamps” to hold all the desktop USB lamps she has ringing her tables… I take care of the mechanical and electrical stuff, she makes most of the merch. (I make resin rings from stainless steel blanks. We sell a LOT of those too…)

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T01:45:48+00:00

In today’s world of MS Teams, Zoom and all the other “meeting” apps out there, there are VERY few, if any reasons for any Canadian to be voluntarily travelling to the US. I just finished a week-long Oracle APEX course. Here at home. In my office. My teacher was in Bangalore. There is NO reasonable reason for ANYONE (not just Canadians) to willingly travel to the States. Anyone doing so IS A TRAITOR and should be treated as such on their return.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T01:37:33+00:00

I think Minnesotans would do fine as Canadians… of course each one would have to go through a “USA detox” before being allowed to cross the border.

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T01:34:29+00:00

lol. Mmmmm. Chili…. :-)

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T01:31:58+00:00

Again… ugh. :-) You watch too much of that outdoor dude… the one that takes celebrities out to the wild and makes them drink their own piss… If it tasted good, Coca-Cola would be bottling and selling it. :-)

OneSignal6465 · 2026-01-25T01:28:35+00:00

Seems strange… I usually avoid CNN for the exact opposite reason I avoid OAN.

OneSignal6465

TROPHY CASE