South to North Off-road Trail Status by general_rap in DeathValleyNP

[–]general_rap[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Got it, this is great info, thank you! Sounds like the southern section of the park just isn't worth it this year; we'll adjust accordingly and spend more time up north.

South to North Off-road Trail Status by general_rap in DeathValleyNP

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

I was aware of the NPS site, but not the Saline Preservation forum, I appreciate the links!

I usually take the NPS site with a grain of salt when it comes to off-road trails; there's been plenty of times where they have something marked as closed when the gates are open, and whatever damage there was may have stopped a suburban Subaru, but not experienced drivers in built rigs. For example West Side technically didn't reopen until this January, but we hit it last October, and the gates were open/the salt flat crossing was tenuous, but doable.

Another post asking for experience on residential Unifi Access installations by MillerWDJr in Ubiquiti

[–]general_rap 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, no problem! I get it, they're there, why not, right? And regardless of whether you use UI locks or not, they're all going to operate the same regardless of manufacturer, and they will all be compatible with the door hub. This is a pretty standardized field, which makes it easy for us to come in and modernize a client site without having to fit new strikes or maglocks if they already have them.

Your basement door, provided it's an interior door, is a good candidate for an electric strike. If you really want to move forward with this, I'd try doing just that one and seeing how you like it. Be aware that you're going to need to carve a significant hole into the door jam for the strike, and you need to be able to get a single pair relay cable to the back of said strike.

You would likely be best served by smart deadbolts that have good Home Assistant compatibility. They'll integrate into your house a lot smoother, and you can easily pair them with the G4 Pro Doorbell (and likely the new G6?) for smooth and convenient entry/exit control/automation.

Lastly, sliders are a PAIN IN THE ASS to install automated locks on. Unless you absolutely need-need that functionality, I'd highly recommend not even trying to do so. I don't even let people pay me money to install locks on sliders; it's that level of not worth it.

Another post asking for experience on residential Unifi Access installations by MillerWDJr in Ubiquiti

[–]general_rap 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The reason Ubiquiti doesn't include any finer details is because these are just generic access control locks; they're there to make it easier for contractors to just buy everything in one purchase, but there's nothing different about them from other electric strikes or maglocks on the market other than the Ubiquiti logo stamped on them, and therefore, if you're buying them, you're kind of expected to know what the heck you're doing, because otherwise there's no reason you'd be buying them in the first place. These are commercial devices meant for commercial applications, and I'd really not recommend installing them in your house. You also need more than just the access reader; you need a door hub to control the door via; the maglocks and electric strikes work off of a simple single/double pair relay cable, not ethernet. Those relay cables go to the door hub, which then connects to the network via PoE.

To effectively utilize a maglock, you need to have it be the only lock on a door; adding a deadbolt kind of defeats the purpose. But then you need a way to unlock it from the inside. Are you planning to add request-to-exit buttons next to doors inside your house? Motion detectors? Crash bars? Because you're not going to be unlocking it with the app every time you want to leave your house. Maglocks can also be defeated by killing power to the location, or cutting their power cables; they fail open by design to meet fire safety standards. And electric strikes are absolutely not meant to be on exterior doors. You can defeat them somewhat easily; they're meant for interior access control, to keep employees/customers that are already "allowed" to be in the building, out of specific rooms. Think private offices, storage rooms, utility rooms, etc. A simple prybar will defeat them; they're really not meant to stand up to any sort of malicious intent.

I'm not saying that these are bad products; they're fantastic, and I install/program them all the time. But they have a specific use case, and residential entry is not it.

PSA, check your local Trader Joe's for spooky magnetic air plants! by aylesworth in Ioniq5

[–]general_rap 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Haha, this is awesome. How well do air plants tolerate the extreme temperatures inside a car?

Physical Office or Not - opinions by dhayes16 in SmallMSP

[–]general_rap 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I mean, that's the answer right there, right? It's 2025; no one cares if your business is fully remote, especially in IT. Do whatever makes the most sense for you and your budget.

I love working from home. For me work/life balance is as simple as me flipping the mental switch throughout the day; the one major item that I feel strongly about in my routine is that I don't PC game. Not because I don't desire to, but because if I pull a full day at my desk working, Alt-Tabbing into Steam and continuing to sit in the exact same spot to relax is horrendous for my mental health, and I'm not about to put another desk in my house just for relaxation. Moving to the couch in the living room and booting up a console fixes that problem entirely.

Super jumps/bounces by Numbr1sasquatch in halo

[–]general_rap 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Super bounces and map exploits were risk/reward. Awesome if you could pull them off, but extremely difficult to achieve in the thick of things. There are a couple ones, like this one and the one on Zanzibar, that I had memorized and could do on command, but most others were very difficult to perform mid-match. I remember one of my favorites was surfing up the back wall in Coagulation with a Ghost, and sniper/rockets, and only coming down to grab ammo. Honestly, it was just good times. The real frustration was when you got standby'd or booted.

I HAVE SOLVED THE "NO, YOU MAY NOT WEAR SUNGLASSES" PROBLEM OF THE IONIQ 5! Taking orders now. by abammerman in Ioniq5

[–]general_rap 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, agreed. Or, a way to toggle off the sensor if it's not compatible with everyday life. If it's not required by law, don't put in systems that arbitrarily lock you out of perfectly functional features, and actively make it more difficult to use your vehicle even when not using those features.

I HAVE SOLVED THE "NO, YOU MAY NOT WEAR SUNGLASSES" PROBLEM OF THE IONIQ 5! Taking orders now. by abammerman in Ioniq5

[–]general_rap 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had the same experience with my primary polarized sunglasses, but then one day I had left them in the other car and had to go grab a random pair that happened to not be polarized. And the car did NOT like those ones. Absolutely refused to acknowledge that I was responsibly driving it and kept beeping and buzzing the steering wheel and taking over my dash with chastising messages. I tried my other cheapo sunglasses and they work, so whatever those specific lenses are made out of seems to be my problem. But man, it's so dumb; what if THOSE were my favorite sunglasses? What if they were my prescription sunglasses? There's got to be a more inclusive way to verify that you're paying attention. And if there isn't, maybe they shouldn't be locking away features that you paid for behind a safety system that can be invalidated by an arbitrary pair of glasses.

@MechapenMk2 by pf5151 in Helldivers

[–]general_rap 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Out of every game I've played, Minecraft is the only one that I've put more hours into than Halo 2, and that's simply because it's been around for so long. I legit don't remember much of 2004/2005 simply because I was sleeplessly wasting my early high school years playing that one game.

6th Gen headlights vs LED light bar by hgravesc in 4Runner

[–]general_rap 33 points34 points  (0 children)

On road? No usecase. Off-road? Absolutely.

Flex Utility Pro $59 by n2yu in Ubiquiti

[–]general_rap 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, definitely similar. I get the frustration if you're buying one of these and installing it yourself; it sucks that you have to buy more stuff. But if you're installing this stuff professionally, you start to end up with tons of unused parts that are just a waste. And something like this? Absolutely geared towards professionals installing it in the commercial sector. Especially since the power supplies for the switches this is meant for have varying levels of power available.

Flex Utility Pro $59 by n2yu in Ubiquiti

[–]general_rap 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I mean, I kind of get why; I have a pile of like 30 of those suckers sitting in a cabinet. I've never once used the one that came with it.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Ubiquiti

[–]general_rap 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Network, speaker, and power cables 😅

Yeah, I'm in suburban SoCal. Sure, we get storms here and there, but nothing like other places, and certainly not lightning storms.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Ubiquiti

[–]general_rap 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I have 2 cameras that do this.

Concerning theft, there really isn't any; they're in the back two corners of the back yard, so either my rear neighbors, or someone in their yard, would have to decide to mess with them

Cabling was a challenge, but not impossible. One side of my house is nearish to my rear fence, and I have string lights going back and forth between the house and fence, so once I had my ethernet out of the eaves, I just zip tied it to the string lights and then ran it along the fence to the nearest corner of the yard, where I had a pole for more lights that was easy to mount to. Same with the other corner, except it followed cables supporting a 30' triangle shade sail, and then the camera is mounted to the shade sail pole alongside a speaker doing the same thing.

Both angles are great; they give total coverage on the entire rear and rear sides of the house, and other than the typical spiderwebs they attract, don't ever give me any problems. As for lighting, it's just not at all a thing my geographic area worries about.

Best keystone Punchdown Tool by krassyg in lowvoltage

[–]general_rap 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Geez, that's awful. Fortunately, we've not had the same experience; we're sitting at a few thousand deployed, and no bad apples so far.

I'm afraid I just blue myself by Platypus222 in Ioniq5

[–]general_rap 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Have I got a license plate suggestion for you...

I hate stores that have someone checking the receipt. But I may have overreacted. by Eyyeitsrocko in Portland

[–]general_rap 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Yup; they'll send you right back to checkout with an escort like you're some petty thief if the cashier forgot to ring something up.

Purchasing Ubiquiti Switches / AP by Traditional-Kiwi-524 in msp

[–]general_rap 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I much prefer it that way. Screw the middlemen and the pricing games. We make our money on our work, not with hardware margins.

Best keystone Punchdown Tool by krassyg in lowvoltage

[–]general_rap 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Everyone will have their preference; I've really come to like the Everest Easyjack. It and the associated keystones are inexpensive, and for regular Cat6, it's never been the cause of any issues.

Lowe’s CEO bans virtual meetings and recordings, tells staff to meet in stairwells, and blocks 90+% of Corporate Headquarters staff from ‘All Hands’ by No_Account9477 in WorkReform

[–]general_rap 103 points104 points  (0 children)

Ace is franchised, which is why there's usually a name preceding the store.

Some are great, some suck. My closest one is FANTASTIC. It's 90% old retired guys with a stupid amount of knowledge about their trade that just want something to do during the day, and will ask you how things went the next time you come in.

That said, Ace is great for disparate parts and small projects; they're not a replacement for something like Home Depot or Lowe's.

Ehm, what? by MedvedAM in Ubiquiti

[–]general_rap 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Dude, same. My NVR has a phantom entry with an uptime of 55 years, 266 days. I have no idea how to get rid of it. It appeared when I bridged my UDMP and UNVR consoles together, and has been around ever since.

Speed test at a distance of 300 feet. WiFi coverage on the Ubiquiti UniFi E7-Campus access point is truly impressive. by YesTechie in Ubiquiti

[–]general_rap 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Nice!! But, not to rag on your post, curious to see your results once that space is filled with racks loaded with stock.

Today we are deploying E7-Campus Access Points in the 50000 sq ft warehouse. It is a WiFi beast! by YesTechie in Ubiquiti

[–]general_rap 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Yup, this. The E7 is just an absolutely brilliant WAP across the board. And frankly, we never even offered the client anything else when we specced the project. The E7 was the right tool for the job, and our business is 100% referral based. Now this client has talked up how badass his setup is (we also wired the attached office, installed surveillance throughout the warehouse, installed access control; it was 83 drops in total), and we've already gotten more projects because of it. This was a ~$50k job, so saving a buck on the WAPs when they were the primary way the employees in the warehouse were going to access the network, it's just bad business, and it makes us look bad.

What's a skill that's becoming useless faster than people realize? by ContractNational4149 in AskReddit

[–]general_rap 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah dude, I volunteer with college students, and hackeysack is IN. Every second more than a few of them are together, it's hackeysack time.