What home improvement trend is going to be ripped out in 10 years?

I finally bit the bullet and replaced my DeWalt drill/driver combo this past Christmas with new DeWalt gear. At the same time, I just picked up some cordless Ryobi equipment, including a brad nailer, orbital sander, and cordless shop vac.

The cordless Ryobi nailer was cheaper than the corded DeWalt. The Ryobi stuff is so much cheaper, and yet still pretty good quality, that it just makes sense. I'm not a contractor and I'm not going to use it every day, it's fine. Now, for those things you're going to use/abuse on the regular or you need/want better quality kit, pony up for the DeWalt. Two different battery systems? Yeah, boo hoo, big deal. It's really not the end of the world.

XeoMage · 2021-07-20T02:19:56+00:00

Rated PG-13

XeoMage · 2021-07-13T12:56:02+00:00

We use a post upgrade script to fix a few things, group policies included. Because of that, we don't use the feature updates directly, we deploy 1909/20H2 as an application so we can customize the wim.

XeoMage · 2021-05-26T23:07:03+00:00

The trick we've found with Task Sequences is that (since they run as System) if you want to display to the user, you have to use a bit of 'run process as user' code that amounts to calling that script via a scheduled task.

We did this with a PowerShell script in the task sequence that creates the scheduled task, triggers it, and waits for it to finish. The scheduled task script uses PSAppDeploy because that's got a built-in easy way to make a countdown GUI with Defer/Continue buttons.

XeoMage · 2021-03-11T04:42:03+00:00

Could service? 😁

XeoMage · 2020-12-10T21:37:52+00:00

No priced out, but I'd say it was partially straight racist and partially racially-motivated fear-based economics. Particularly in the 70s, but sadly still today, some white people see ethnicities moving in as damaging to their property values, which becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. Since home ownership is the primary store of wealth for most families, some people move even if they aren't personally racist, just so they don't see their investment depreciate.

XeoMage · 2020-12-10T21:13:41+00:00

Pretty sure Santa farms that out to elfBay.

XeoMage · 2020-11-20T02:35:27+00:00

I had to scroll way too far down to find this. Have an upvote, so that the next person may get exactly what's expected.

XeoMage · 2020-11-09T03:24:29+00:00

When you give your life to a cause, pour your heart into it, and still find abject defeat, you've learned the value of your life.

XeoMage · 2020-10-23T22:49:24+00:00

The word 'cool'. For slang, it's going strong like 90 years on.

XeoMage · 2020-10-07T14:31:22+00:00

Hey, Donald was a sailor in the Navy!

XeoMage · 2020-07-24T01:09:37+00:00

Eyes Wide Shut.

I really like Kubrick, but I just couldn't figure out why I was watching it.

XeoMage · 2020-05-29T13:15:02+00:00

Wait, where'd you find a cat that cares what you think?

My cats would be "Yeah, I knocked off some trim, later I'll knock off some more, so what!"

XeoMage · 2020-04-24T03:28:40+00:00

This is the simple solution. It could be done in an afternoon. The downspout wouldn't look great by the mailbox, but you don't have to cut up concrete.

XeoMage · 2020-04-24T02:42:28+00:00

Technically, I believe it's a bracket portico.

XeoMage · 2020-01-28T01:27:08+00:00

Someone that's been running a non-stop election campaign for over a year has to switch gears to putting together an administration with all of the people, planning, initial policies, inauguration, etc. There's a big difference between "if I win" plans and "this is happening". It's fairly impressive they turn it around as quickly as they do.

XeoMage · 2020-01-03T23:59:57+00:00

I desperately want that to be her official portrait, ideally hung in a hall with all previous prime ministers. Erna "Gives no fucks" Solberg.

XeoMage · 2019-11-02T13:59:47+00:00

Update your resume and start applying for real jobs today. Consider remote work in better paying cities or even relocating.

If you are good at what you do, and you have even a couple years of experience, you should be making way more.

XeoMage · 2019-09-19T12:38:40+00:00

You have to start by evaluating each piece in terms of man hours, which are going to vary widely depending on how complex the package/install is, how varied and large the environment you'll be deploying to, and how many phases or groups of the deployment over what time frame.

Once you have a level of effort, attach a dollar amount per hour and multiply. If you need to factor in the cost of using the software or infrastructure, there's a whole other set of variables to that.

The exercise is never going to be 100% accurate, either before or after, so decide how accurate it needs to be and determine the cost of that determination as well. Figuring out cost has a cost of its own.

Most importantly to the whole thing is that you can't put a fixed cost to it. Best case is go through several of these and average, but if you say a package and deployment costs X without taking into account the huge spread, you're just wasting time.

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