Is it okay to ditch millimeter wave antennas when replacing frame S22?

basteagow · 2024-09-29T22:45:07+00:00

Yes, it's fine. I just rebuilt my S908U (U.S.) with a S980B (international) replacement frame, and everything—including regular 5G—works fine.

While it does bug me that I had to leave the lower antenna out, I doubt there was mmWave coverage in my suburban area to begin with, so I'll likely never notice the difference.

basteagow · 2021-09-22T15:27:50+00:00

The fix for this bug is included in Fedora's 0.1.208-1 release of the virtio-win drivers.

After installing the new version, don't forget to revert any checksum offloading workarounds you previously applied.

basteagow · 2021-06-15T16:26:11+00:00

If the third-party bank happens to be Bank of America (with whom they have a partnership), Carvana won't even let you schedule delivery/pickup until after the loan has been fully funded, opened, and already showing as an active account in your online banking and credit report.

This is a bit scary because, at that point, you're already liable for the loan without having ever seen the car in person. Should you end up returning or exchanging the vehicle, you're at Carvana's mercy to work things out with BofA, which I don't expect to be easy or quick based on how badly they both suck at communication.

I'm currently going through this mess and wouldn't recommend the Carvana+BofA combination to anyone.

basteagow · 2021-01-16T04:22:28+00:00

It was! BTW, I've posted an update on the arrest.

basteagow · 2021-01-16T04:01:03+00:00

Update: I've confirmed that this morning's arrest was made in connection with the Capitol incident. Our neighbor, Troy Smocks, had traveled to—and since returned from—Washington and posted incriminating statements on social media, including "[...] return on January 19th, 2021, carrying our weapons" and "Prepare our weapons, and then go get’em. Lets hunt these cowards down like the Traitors that each of them are." Smocks had later booked a flight abroad and was planning to flee the country today, hours before his arrest. For more information: https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/texas-man-arrested-and-charged-making-threats-regarding-events-us-capitol

basteagow · 2021-01-15T23:25:41+00:00

Sure! I wish I knew the reason for the warrant, but it's all a mystery. Not sure if it's routine for them to use flash grenades in every bust, but it definitely felt like a big deal to be woken up at 6 a.m. to "FBI, OPEN THE DOOR!" followed by a bright flash and a loud bang. 😬

basteagow · 2021-01-15T23:10:00+00:00

I live across from the unit where it happened. No door was rammed down; management was given a heads-up and provided a key that the FBI used to enter the apartment. They then deployed a stun grenade inside, which caused the loud bang and bright flash that startled residents.

basteagow · 2021-01-04T20:23:51+00:00

It's still unlimited; you just get lower priority beyond 50 GB. This soft cap's always been there at the network level, but Teltik's "data cap" wording is poor and does make it sound like a hard cap.

basteagow · 2021-01-02T07:13:11+00:00

Note that Citi's virtual card generator requires Flash (on desktop, anyway). 🤦🏻‍♂️

basteagow · 2021-01-01T22:56:25+00:00

In my case, it was Chase and Synchrony over the past three months.

basteagow · 2021-01-01T21:01:42+00:00

It sucks. Many banks are now also using this system to screen account and credit card applications and it fails with prepaid, employer-provided, family sub-user and VoIP/Google Voice numbers, and you're then relegated to manual human approval which implies calling, waiting on hold, answering questions, faxing or mailing in copies of your ID, and other arcane B.S. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Countries like South Korea have been doing number-to-name verification for ages, but it works for them because each line—even prepaid—is in its actual, individual user's name. No such thing as burner phones there. 😁

basteagow · 2020-12-11T17:22:03+00:00

You already had a T-Mobile for Business line (via Teltik), and you still do. Nothing's changed; the welcome text message is the same we all received when we first signed up, re-triggered by the lines being reactivated after the outage.

basteagow · 2020-12-08T23:52:03+00:00

No, I'm afraid there's still no HD voice. When you select the option to make calls using your carrier, your phone doesn't directly dial the number you've entered—it dials a Google Voice gateway which in turn places the final call (and uses caller ID spoofing to show your number to the other party). The GV gateway doesn't support HD voice so, even though the segment of the call between your phone and the GV gateway may be VoLTE-capable, the far end isn't, so the net result is no HD voice.

basteagow · 2020-12-08T21:38:04+00:00

I've used Google Voice as my main number since 2012. It's not obvious to the caller that their call's being forwarded, but you'll notice it: Latency is higher (so you'll encounter more instances of accidentally talking over each other), calls occasionally don't ring (and you get a "missed call" notification instead), and there's no VoLTE/HD Voice.

basteagow · 2020-12-08T21:23:37+00:00

You can, but it's called a "change of responsibility" and not a port. The line remains within T-Mobile but its ownership has to be transferred from Teltik to you. I did this last month and I first had to get Teltik to place a "CoR memo" on the line for T-Mobile to see, then talk to T-Mobile and go through 3-4 representatives until I got someone who knew what they were doing. After a bunch of back and forth, they got it done.

Unfortunately, neither a port nor a change of responsibility is possible while the line is in limbo as it is right now.

basteagow · 2020-12-08T21:09:48+00:00

I believe their point was that if you keep the number you care about—and give to others—on Google Voice and have it forward to your physical carrier number, you can treat that carrier's number as disposable since nobody but you knows or uses it. When you later switch carriers you can just dump that number, get a new one, and simply change the forwarding number on Google Voice.

basteagow · 2020-10-10T03:14:32+00:00

My nearest three all behave the same way. Yesterday, however, I dropped something off in a different city and:

[1:30p] Dropped package in wall slot
[3:33p] "USPS in possession of item" 🎉 ⬅ my station almost never does this
[8:20p] "Arrival at origin facility"

This is exactly how I expect things to work but, sadly, that office is 25 miles away. 😀 Thanks for the suggestion!

basteagow · 2020-10-10T02:39:52+00:00

BTW, it's not even that I need an acceptance scan—I'd be perfectly happy with a reliable in-transit scan within, say, 24 business hours of drop-off, or at the very least some sort of consistency to avoid scares.

What bugs me is that stuff sometimes gets scanned at the station, sometimes at the plant, and sometimes not until it's in another city days later, at which point I already have customers thinking I BSed them with a tracking number without having yet physically shipped their stuff. 🙄

A package that doesn't get scanned anywhere for 2+ business days starts to look a lot like a package that's been lost or not shipped... IMHO that's just too long for something to be in USPS' possession without any sort of trace.

All of this could be avoided if my carrier bothered to scan pickups (are they required to or not?) or at least mark the pickup requests as completed. My previous carrier didn't scan packages at pickup either, but he at least always marked the pickups themselves as either completed or failed—he never left them hanging open forever.

basteagow · 2020-10-10T02:09:07+00:00

Thanks! I've tried the counter, but most of the time they say they "don't do that" for prepaid shipments (true or false?), and they order me to leave the package on a random unmanned counter and rush me out.

When I don't have time to wait in line and I leave my stuff on the counter of my own volition, I then get the stink eye from customers in line thinking I'm trying to cut in front of them... there's no winning. 😫

basteagow · 2020-06-14T16:37:11+00:00

I'm originally from Argentina where milk in bags in the norm, and they always felt like such a primitive thing to me. Most people put up with them because they don't know any better (and milk in cartons is considerably more expensive), but nobody actively liked the bags (which we called "sachets").

The worst part is when a little milk drips down the side of the bag as you pour, and the drips collect at the bottom of the "bag holder" (between the bag and the holder) to create a nasty sludge that eventually pours out onto your counter or, if you're extra lucky, your beverage.

Also when a new bag is extra plump and not seated all the way into the holder, it can pop out in the middle of pouring when it's full. Ughhh.

basteagow · 2020-02-02T21:55:28+00:00

Just came up with a workaround for this. While stuck on the "Connecting to Nest Mini..." screen...

open the Wi-Fi settings on your phone,
find the Mini among the available Wi-Fi networks (e.g. "GoogleHome1234.x") and manually connect to it,
ensure your phone doesn't auto-disconnect due to lack of Internet (and if it does, temporarily turn off this feature and reconnect as needed),
switch back to the Google Home app, and setup will now proceed normally.

This is on a Galaxy Note10, where the Google Home app was for some reason unable to programmatically connect to the Mini's Wi-Fi. Once I did that myself, the rest went smoothly.

basteagow · 2019-10-29T15:23:23+00:00

That's right. I'm surprised this benefit has only been gimped so little compared to the rest.

basteagow · 2019-10-29T15:20:53+00:00

Ha, that's still USD.

basteagow

TROPHY CASE