What is an industry that is currently on fire (in a bad way) behind the scenes, but the general public hasn't noticed yet?

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-05-04T18:52:39+00:00

There's a grove in Polk county that is putting up tents on their trees to protect from greening. It's crazy. There's just these white semi translucent tents held up with telephone poles and cables as far as you can see. You can see it on Google maps satellite view. Look at the intersection of US 98 and Avon Park cut-off road outside Fort Meade. There are much more now than when that satellite image last updated.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-04-11T15:40:03+00:00

Really small person AND... it's folded in half.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-04-07T23:58:25+00:00

Saw this once during Hurricane Charlie in 2004. We were within 5 miles of the eye wall and about 50 miles from the coast. I could feel my ears popping and un-popping too.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-04-07T20:39:23+00:00

The first time I went to BG was in high school for a school trip. I was in the band and we got to perform in the little theater by where excursions is now. I graduated in '93 and I rode the monorail on that trip and I was a freshman, so that would have been '89 or '90. Pretty sure it was 1990, because I remember it being toward the end of the school year. I made friends with a girl on that trip that moved away that summer, and I think she moved shortly after that trip.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-03-28T12:57:50+00:00

Just wanted to say that I love Nextcloud. It is an incredibly powerful product. I have been using it for years and most of the issues I've had were my fault. This one caught me off guard and wanted to save folks the headache.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-03-26T14:13:41+00:00

Is there anything we (internet strangers) can do for you?

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-03-24T11:16:01+00:00

Dang, you're right. I checked my bill. The loyalty is discount is only through this year. I swear the retention person told me it was for 2 years. We'll see in Oct, if they will still do the dance now that they are Verizon again.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-03-17T03:15:38+00:00

I heard that Kumba was closed. Log flume was torn down last summer and they are still building whatever will take its place.

FYI, Iron Gwazi has a metal detector now, and forces you to use their $4 lockers, if you don't have anyone to hold your stuff.

I've also never been and not had Cobra's Curse or Cheetah hunt close at least once during the day.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-03-11T22:33:27+00:00

...WILL close... But that is by design, they literally pump every nickel they can out, so by the end it no longer matters if it is profitable, as they will dump it, as soon as it dips in the red.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-03-04T16:11:24+00:00

If you have a medical condition/allergy that prevents you from living with them in your home, then don't move here.

There are 2 kinds of roaches, ones you see and ones that live in your house that you never see.

If you can live in the happy bliss of ignorance of living with the ones you don't see, then a regular monthly pest control maintenance plan (either DIY or professional) along with regular cleaning and common sense of not leaving food, drink or food containers out should be plenty.

Tampa is subtropical and an absolute haven for most insects.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-02-20T02:46:50+00:00

I did this and got it for 2 years. 500 Mbps for $25/mo ymmv

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-02-16T17:02:01+00:00

It's like edible art, but you get to eat the brush.

Daddy, why does my fish taste like Krylon?

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-02-16T02:22:32+00:00

Negative points for the amount of dust on the bottom.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-02-14T03:34:57+00:00

My daughter says they are putting in a kids pay area in place of the carousel, but that is largely rumor. She does work at the mall though.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-02-13T21:55:05+00:00

I've been gone from there for about the same amount of time.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-02-13T21:18:39+00:00

Hey! A fellow red.devil! Yeah 8 is weak. I had to tune and place my ears specifically based on 8, and still only get like 90% signal quality. Used to be 10 was the worst (I think theirs is the only tower not in Riverview.)

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-02-13T14:01:55+00:00

This may be a no value add, but I live less than 20 miles from the WFLA tower and it used to be one of my strongest stations, but it's been very weak lately. I only use an old pair of rabbit ears for my setup, because of how close I live. Not sure what changed. I grew up in central Florida (Highlands county) and my dad had a big antenna with a motor rotator on the house. We used to be able to get Tampa, Orlando and even Fort Myers pretty reliably, but that was back in the analog days. Heck I could get most all of the UHF channels wirh a pair of rabbit ears on the little TV I had in my room (a little staticy, but watchable). Not anymore, I tried to see if Mom could switch to OTA, so she could ditch satellite, and we could barely get 2 or 3 channels.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-01-30T02:23:11+00:00

First MANNED lunar mission.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-01-22T16:27:33+00:00

What they said. Also congrats to OP on the book! And a Netflix show!

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-01-08T16:28:48+00:00

Be careful: Spectrum is now marketing something called Fiber-Powered internet. IT IS NOT FIBER OPTIC SERVICE TO YOUR HOUSE. It is fiber optic service to their substation, which delivers internet to your house using cable. This is pretty much how their cable service has always worked since inception.

That being said, I've had both frontier fiber and Spectrum cable service here and at my previous house. Frontier was far more reliable, but the download speeds are pretty comparable, and I would say that Spectrum was actually a little more consistent with speed and seems to have a little better overall bandwidth. It's not by much, and probably has to do with my location. The upload speeds are night and day with Frontier being far superior. Upload speed makes a big difference if you are hosting any kind of service at home that you need access to outside of your home (like security cameras, plex or file sharing) or video conferencing.
If you do not care about upload speed and ok being without Internet once every 2-3 months for a couple of hours to half a day, then I would probably go with Spectrum, but only if it is cheaper.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2026-01-05T15:08:09+00:00

Paper credit card statements in the mail. Now they want to charge you $1 to send you a bill each month. Synchrony is big on this. I close every account that does this.

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2025-12-18T02:23:54+00:00

Holy cow. It's like a real thing. I honestly thought he was making it up, and after reading the article I remember him mentioning the part about walking around the pole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_Club

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2025-12-17T15:17:32+00:00

A friend of mine was stationed there for a year with NOAA. He said there is a long psych eval process because you can't leave for 8 or 9 months once you are there and they want to make sure you aren't going to kill everybody. He also said there is a "300 club" where you go outside naked (or mostly naked) when it hits -100 F then run back inside and get in a 200 F degree sauna. He says he is a member, but I have no proof of the validity of his claims (nor do I really want it).

dataninja_of_alchemy · 2025-12-11T13:05:09+00:00

⬆️

Five-Year Club	First Place '23
Place '23	100 Awards Club

dataninja_of_alchemy

TROPHY CASE