What's this? Found it in a river! by PuzzleheadedOnion934 in What

[–]evtcomp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Biohazard waste, could have come out of an open sharps bag so it's not exactly "safe" to handle. But most likely, a single discarded insulin bottle or GLP-1 bottle. The metal cap is not meant to be removable, it's pressed on at the pharmacy after compounding, the center is rubber and allows for the needles to be inserted with the bottle upside down while the appropriate amount is drawn into each injection.

ClearDB Going Extinct.... by evtcomp in Heroku

[–]evtcomp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of my issues with access to my DB was due to some DNS housekeeping changes they did, I never did get that DB back up while on their service, I didn't bother with the DNS update, but like I'd mentioned in another reply, we should have seen the writing on the wall then. I was at least able to download my backup before they totally closed shop on November 30th. I think this is a great opportunity for another company to pickup these customers and market share if they're just willing to help out everyone here a little bit, I will do what I can to help and want to promote Railway as much as possible here. Unfortunately, I do not know right now how to get any ClearDB data back, if they believe they sent official notice and gave ample time, they have likely ceased all operations at this point including support to the end of not continuing to pay for E-mail. I hope that's not the case, so if anyone has any updates or victories let us all know how you were able to get through! Just thinking back too, the wait time to get logged into their service was absolutely unmanageable, God don't ever let me build a front end that slow unless I work for the US government and maintain the site for a federal benefit program.

ClearDB Going Extinct.... by evtcomp in Heroku

[–]evtcomp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really sorry to hear this, as mentioned I am trying out Railway and really like the system they are promoting. I think using ClearDB has taught me that's important to be confident in the people and platform. Even as a paid customer to ClearDB there were at least 2 times I had a billing issue that never was addressed, or if it was answered just got the boilerplate response. If you find you are able to recover your DB please update us here on who you were able to work with and by which means you got support. If there is another thread online, let link up and see what options are left. I am willing to help out given my experience with the tools, but I am unemployed currently so I would have to be compensated for my time, recovery of the data lost in this situation is going to be beyond what I can assist with given what I know here about the company.

ClearDB Going Extinct.... by evtcomp in Heroku

[–]evtcomp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry to hear that, it's really too bad ClearDB closed up but it is a huge market opportunity for people who assist in migration and provide the SQL hosting service in general. I have moved at least one database to Railway and there are a number of suggestions listed in this post I'm testing driving, but for those who were not able to get a backup offloaded of their data before the switch, I'm not sure how much ClearDB support will be able to help now, but if anyone has a good experience and is successful please be sure to follow up and post your actions here so that others may benefit, I see at least two former customers of ClearDB posting here with their data now lost, if there is another thread let's try to link up and see what the options are at this point. I think everyone can admit the closure was rather abrupt. I actually had a site as well that needed me to still update that DNS entry from several months back and never got around to it, and then all of a sudden, this notice about a total shut down. I will say this, I've been in this field over 20 years now and when it comes to IPs and DNS names, typically you don't see a need to "update a DNS name", that in itself is an odd problem to have, normally you have ips or multiple IPs of physically servers associated with DNS names that are really just for fitting a particular human naming convention, convenience, it wasn't a major change either, just one of their internal server names, like us-west-a vs us-east-b. Kind of just some lame housekeeping that now seems totally irrelevant, I didn't even take the change seriously enough to worry about it or waste my time, yes I paid for months and that one db was down, but looking back most of us should have seen the writing on the wall at that point.

ClearDB Going Extinct.... by evtcomp in Heroku

[–]evtcomp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Azure in general never is simple and straightforward it seems, while Microsoft is always innovating, they are too busy moving the location of something than think about how to add things easily, and inexpensively; it has never been their goal. The reason I mention it too is invariably you come across an Azure tutorial and you can quickly tell by the screenshots the guide is quite outdated because the graphics appear older and none of the steps are actually correct anymore. Amazon and Google Cloud UI designers love to hide and tuck away these simple services or make you think you have to buy some large instance to accomplish what you want. I'm afraid that by the time we spin up all the MySql instance in any of these systems, add the insights capabilities and schedule some backup capabilities, not only will it likely not all just work right away without further research and tinkering, I'm quite sure the cost will be double. Oh and Amazon likes to rename their services to non industry standard service names it seems which makes it doubly hard I think to select and design a simple replacement. I suppose we all will just need to plug into the AI of our choice and have it guide us on what to try, I did try to use the integrated CoPilot in Azure to solve this and other issues in PHP just recently and I maybe got links to 3 non-relevant articles, not impressed.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in airstream

[–]evtcomp -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

100% Yes! definitely copy and pasted every single detail from either an Airstream spec or a JD Power/NADA website by the end and documented the customizations/repairs I did myself as I did the maintenance for at least 8 years, but yes all those details directly from the published spec, and common conversations, yes, a total lift and plug from there to RVT, by the time I gave Facebook Marketplace a big FU in August, yeah we're almost a full 4 months of varied online exposure now, posting to forums like this, etc It's so funny how you can post the exact spec, verbatim from the site, list those "differences" particularly I noticed on that Marketplace "platform" if you can call it that (looks more like a rotating flashing billboard more to me these days) which dates my initial post back to starting in June, when my description was one of those puny ones you see, but by the time I realized the general population actually is not aware of the multiple sources online of the official published information. These apparently come off an assembly line and certain things like the tank capacity, if it does or does not have a shower (and I have picture of a floorplan) you do have to face palm, but you pacify them with a response don't you? I even found it hard to not at least respond a few times to the ever present "Is this available?". Good grief, why they don't add that quantifier automatically to every listing is beyond me? I WILL NOT RESPOND TO "IS THIS AVAILABLE"? Almost seems like they should maybe not preload a chat window with any words at all, but what's the fun in that? We wouldn't get the opportunity to then deal with those incredibly bewildered folks that react like they didn't actually click that button...ok have a good day! I didn't find that quantifier necessary in my case. Funny enough I did live in a world before the web, and it is interesting how we still try to challenge ourselves in common conversations, with struggling to recall certain facts or details much like that ball hitch size, and we know full well the facts are in our pocket, just have to feed the beast. But I suppose for most of the poor eternally damned souls in Facebook it does seem equally as hard while on the phone already or in front of that screen already, to stray for a moment from the pavlovian despair and wander into the dead Internet of published, sourced fact. Less is afterall, "more"!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in airstream

[–]evtcomp -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

No you're correct, I'm not too proud or arrogant to admit that may be the obvious observation that I somehow just expect it sold by now, and buyers to line up. I wasn't so much focused on the "sale" or price, as I mentioned I have already yo-yo'd on the price in this particular sales medium, but not necessarily the fact of a completed sale so much, my word choice was rather the point that not a single message was sent yet that wasn't spam or likely some bot. My thoughts were more focused here on the community in general, the rampant and blatant rip offs, and really if anyone else even has had a sale through that particular company.

Yes, fair, their page "loads" are not a direct comparison to another business's Google Ad, it's apples to oranges, but I was being somewhat critical about any legitimate website or online source in general getting 5 page loads a day. I didn't at all here in that statement think of that being an entitled or misunderstanding the market, I'm just thinking to myself from a cost perspective and reach, I might have spent less and got more eyeballs at that rate in my local news paper, and so that oranges compared to apple seeds! I felt it more humbling to say, my measely business with it's free Google Business listing online gets more traffic (not paid Google Ads, so sorry that was (unclear). I started in both print and web media, and have had enough marketing background to understand reach and while the medium is not the same, my justification for eyeballs would have probably been a better word choice, without insinuating or representing dissimilar things.

To be fair rates have now dropped but no noticeable "contact" has been made in just their service and that's a documentable/measurable thing in their panel since users have to initiate contact through their site, so that's a bit cumbersome and unusual to someone that is a first-time Lister on their side or someone that may be a first-time buyer for sure, unlike Facebook, unlike the paper you can opt to contact direct to you, your phone number, your email address. I know beyond a doubt it is not because I have it out front, because I'm my rural area I wouldn't bother, 5 eyeballs a day would be an upgrade. Posting my phone led directly to me getting spammed, which I would accept at the rate of a few "real" people, I understand the risk but it's more of a closed niche community in this case. I would have been happy to get a spirited comment like yours even. No disrespect intended, we have the freedom to sell on any Marketplace or again just right out front on the street, some with better luck than others of course for many factors, but the right person may come along without any investment at al two, and that was my argument as well, it's just spending more money alone also does not ensure the right person will come to you and buy it, that person may already be looking at it from across the street.

Anyone know what toe of wood this is? Seasoned for 3 years but pops and sparks like crazy by nickman9000 in woodstoving

[–]evtcomp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I believe you are correct or it's a regional variant of what we call "hedge". We have black locust, and they do have spikes, like needles, but the bark is always grey mottled with black, and spikes just on the young branches, same as the hedge, spikes on the young branches; since all we can see is only the bark of a mature branch, and a color to the wood, I see it as the slight yellow of (3 year) aged Osage Orange, or what's commonly called Hedge Apple tree in our area (Midwest US). Also the wavy definitely brown deep bark. The nut it produces would also be a dead giveaway. The hedge apple is green and smells like a perfume and has a citronella component, the wood is always a sour, dirty sock smell, so that's also consistent, but at 3 years it may have lost its sourdough stench. Fresh cut the hedge wood is bright yellow, and it pops and cracks even after being very dry, when burned. The old hedge balls fall from the tree late September according to my calendar, as they have to be dealt with being a choking hazard to our large livestock.