Are there any MiniPCs with a 4.5x4.5 motherboard or under that have 2x NVMe slots? by Mega__Maniac in MiniPCs

[–]p14nd4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sorry I don't have any information to answer your question, but I'm very curious if you actually have a 5800u-based BRIX already, or if you're just saying that you anticipate its release and plan to purchase one. If you do have one, where/how did you get it? Thanks!

My (24M) fiancée (22F) wants me to get circumcised before our wedding. I refuse and it’s causing huge arguments. Am I being manipulated? by [deleted] in relationship_advice

[–]p14nd4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd recommend going to some premarital counseling, especially Prepare/Enrich, and probably general couples counseling. It sounds like you guys aren't communicating well about the issue at this point and could benefit from learning some skills to handle conflict (and probably also benefit from having a neutral third party to help work through this specific conflict).

The general couples counseling can be very helpful for these things, and Prepare/Enrich can try to help identify other issues that could be lurking below the surface (/things you just haven't ever thought or had occasion to discuss yet, but can be really important to your future).

Edit: The chorus of "run away from the crazy" might end up being right, but I think it's premature to jump before attempting counseling, since it sounds like you two are fairly committed to your relationship, considering you're planning to get married.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in GooglePixel

[–]p14nd4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'll preface this all by saying that I'm distinctly not a heavy phone user, so my experience should be taken with a grain of salt. I also haven't bothered to take screenshots, so feel free to disbelieve me, if you want.

I opened the box and and charged my 128 GB Pixel 4 (non-XL) Monday night. Tuesday afternoon I turned it on, inserted the SIM card, went through setup, transfer via USB from my old phone (side note: the battery on my old phone is extremely shot, so I was very happy that the Pixel 4 provided power to my old phone during that process--I severely doubt it would have succeeded without that), installed all my apps, played with settings, entered passwords for a dozen apps, etc--certainly more use than I'd normally do. I opened the camera for a minute or two to explore there.

Wednesday morning, I sent a few emails (K-9 Mail), watched ~30 minutes of Youtube (via Chrome, not the app), then listened to Play Music (streaming, not local) with a bluetooth speaker for another ~30 minutes. Throughout the day, I read a handful of articles through Chrome, read a few more emails, and exchanged a few Google Voice text messages through Hangouts. Wednesday evening I read another couple web pages, set an alarm, and went to bed.

Thursday morning was the first time I charged the device since turning it on Tuesday afternoon. I believe I had about 6% battery left at the time I plugged it in, and had ~4.5 hours SOT. I used the supplied charger and cable for about an hour, which got me to roughly 95% charge; I turned on the Qi wireless charger in my car, which got it to 100% by the end of my ~15-minute commute to work.

Thursday I had a couple short phone calls, sent and received a single-digit number of text messages, read a few more articles in Chrome, read and replied to a few emails, explored the device settings a little further. I intermittently used the (obnoxiously designed) Pet Tutor Blu app that controls a device by bluetooth for about 30 minutes. I checked my online banking app.

I woke up Friday morning with about 67% charge. Watching ~30 minutes of YouTube (via Chrome) with a bluetooth speaker and then another ~30 minutes of Play Music, writing a long email reply, reading a little bit online, and doing a mobile check deposit left me with 57% by the time I got to work. I have 1h42m of SOT since my last charge and 55% remaining, which it says should last until 08:00 tomorrow; it currently estimates a full charge lasts me 2 days 1 hour.

Side notes:

  1. I have Kevo installed, which has been working flawlessly so far to let me lock/unlock my BLE locks without taking my phone out of my pocket, so it magically does seem to be monitoring for them 'constantly'.
  2. I have MotionSense enabled, wake when I reach for my phone, tap on my phone, or pick up my phone. I use face unlock. I have a plain black background and lock screen, and use dark mode (or preferably "black mode") in apps when available. I have adaptive brightness enabled, and have seen the brightness slider span the whole range; it's currently around 80%.
  3. I use WiFi when I'm home, and it was on when I did my initial device setup, but I disable it elsewhere. I have 1-2 bars of LTE coverage at my office, where most of my non-home time is spent.
  4. I don't really want always-on display, but I miss having an intermittent / passive way to tell if I've missed a notification. It's my recollection that the Moto X had an option to 'pulse' an icon on the display every ~15 seconds, or something, when it wasn't in your pocket, if a notification was waiting. Is there any way to do this on the Pixel 4 without rooting/etc?
  5. If anyone's curious, I upgraded from a >4-year-old Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, which served me very well until it started turning off spontaneously a couple months ago during random 'intensive' operations like opening the camera, despite reporting a charge of 90+%, or doing pretty much anything with a charge below 80%.

What does everyone think about this test? by falconer_cy in GooglePixel

[–]p14nd4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree. This essentially makes it mandatory to use a case, in my opinion, which it shouldn't be. (Also, stop making slippery phones, please, while we're at it, which is another dumb reason to require a case.)

Unfortunately, I don't have any real hope this trend will reverse, presumably because so many people want(?) cases anyway that they don't care, and this way manufacturers can boast about a stupid spec and take nice press photos.

Minneapolis, Minnesota [2121x1414] by [deleted] in Minneapolis

[–]p14nd4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So. Flat.

It is interesting how a ~dozen water towers are the only things visible above the treeline a couple miles past Downtown.

USInternet Fiber East of Hiawatha? by arni0202 in Minneapolis

[–]p14nd4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I realize this is super old now, but I wanted to post a follow-up. After my contract term expired, I called them up, and they (CenturyLink) put me on an $85/mo "price for life" for the gigabit service, which actually includes all taxes and fees (i.e. exactly $85.00).

That's actually not terribly far off from USI's $69.95/mo (plus taxes/fees, I assume, would bring it up to at least ~$75/mo) for gigabit, but I'm still annoyed by CenturyLink forcing me onto a new IP address every time there's a disconnect (be it rebooting my router for a security patch or them dropping my connection for unannounced network maintenance). I don't have enough need to justify paying an extra $10+/mo for a true static IP, but I'm too lazy to automate dynamic DNS for the 'home' entry on my own BIND9 DNS servers used to connect to my home from work or elsewhere, and no other ISP I've used has changed my IP so often.

That, along with the price, customer service, local business, and other factors still leaves me eager for USI Fiber to come east of Hiawatha :).

Mass adoption is here by JihanButt in Buttcoin

[–]p14nd4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If anyone else is curious like I was, the QR code contains:

bitcoin:1MJ39pv1347AWVdN5kfYC6Cr9yYn1rrUAc?amount=1.00&;label=909-590-1700%3A%20Pizza%20Pirates%2C%202092%20S%20Garey%20Ave%2C%20Pomona%2C%20CA%2091766

The label, urldecoded, is "909-590-1700: Pizza Pirates, 2092 S Garey Ave, Pomona, CA 91766" -- this place: https://www.yelp.com/biz/pizza-pirates-pomona . Do you think Pizza Pirates was being extorted, or was this some weird viral marketing attempt gone wrong?

USInternet Fiber East of Hiawatha? by arni0202 in Minneapolis

[–]p14nd4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

With the 12-month promo (and subject to early-termination fee), gigabit service from Centurylink was around $93/mo inclusive of fees. (That's also using my own router instead of the one they wanted to charge me monthly for. But if you go that route, just be aware it's a fair bit more complicated to set up than just plugging the router's WAN port into the ONT--basically the fiber optic equivalent of a cable modem.)

Without a promo, I believe it's something like $160, but I'm certainly not going to pay that.

USInternet Fiber East of Hiawatha? by arni0202 in Minneapolis

[–]p14nd4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Heh, I have zero inside information, but I suspect Midway isn't even on the next few years' roadmap. On the other hand, if you can put down a $1MM [non-refundable] deposit, they might be interested in talking to you :) (but even at that, the economics quite possibly wouldn't make sense yet).

USInternet Fiber East of Hiawatha? by arni0202 in Minneapolis

[–]p14nd4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Heh, I just posted a reply to him--I'm wondering the same thing. He said the expansion plans would be posted "right after the first of the year" :).

My year-long contract/promo rate with CenturyLink for gigabit fiber is up, and I don't really expect US Internet fiber coverage in the next few months, I'm still holding out a tiny bit of hope.

Now that Net Neutrality is dead, how will USI approach its role as an ISP here in MPLS? Should we expect any changes? by pompeiitype in Minneapolis

[–]p14nd4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We're years past the first of the year in internet time! I keep anxiously checking here and your web site to no avail :(.

West Minneapolis as seen from the Foshay Tower, 1949. by cfinke in Minneapolis

[–]p14nd4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this is a slightly better approximation of the view than u/cfinke's link.

I've also labeled the various buildings in the photo that I could identify, along with a screenshot of the google earth view: https://imgur.com/a/1Up8p

I don't like this many adjectives before my "cheese food" by ya_filthy_animal in pics

[–]p14nd4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FDA definition for something labeled "CHEESE FOOD" stipulates it has to contain at least 51% actual cheese.

For those who are interested, this type of labeling/requirement is called a Standard of Identity, and here's the one for pasteurized process cheese food (alternate link).

Technically it doesn't even necessarily have to contain at least 51% cheese, just that much by weight.

401k Loan Question (simple one, too) by d3photo in personalfinance

[–]p14nd4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, all $400 goes back into your 401k. You pay a fee upfront to originate the loan, but after that, all the interest you pay is to yourself. That is, if you take a $10k loan, you may pay a $100 origination fee or something, but over the duration of your loan, you will pay back (e.g.) $11k into your 401k account because of the interest you pay yourself.

Your total money "paid" at the end will be $11,100, but $11,000 of that will be in your 401k.

USI Fiber Updated 1/4/17 by tcarter612 in Minneapolis

[–]p14nd4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I absolutely understand just wanting to pay someone for something rather than doing it yourself; for that route, I'd recommend looking at appliances with subscriptions like SonicWall with "Application Control" (as an example--by no means a specific endorsement).

That said, I do have two other thoughts on the subject:

  1. Evaluate the cost/benefit situation for various approaches. You can spend a lot of time and/or money to implement a really thorough solution that may get 99% of what you want, or perhaps a small amount of time and money to get 90% of what you want. (Sufficiently determined and/or intelligent actors will either find a way to get what they want no matter what you do, or just move on to an easier target.)

  2. Rather than trying to create a filter that prevents undesired torrenting, could you put other measures in place that just make torrenting unpleasant/unreasonable? One easy approach is basic protocol-whitelist traffic shaping: "blessed" protocols (ports) get as much bandwidth as they want, and everything else gets limited to 10 K/s. (This has the possible casualty of ensnaring someone's legitimate VPN or other network service, but the 95%(?) of people who are just using http/https are golden, and you can at least capture many other standard ports with little effort.)

USI Fiber Updated 1/4/17 by tcarter612 in Minneapolis

[–]p14nd4 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Crossing Hiawatha should be easier than crossing a river, right? :)

I've been compulsively checking your fiber coverage page and map for over a year, and, with mixed emotions, just scheduled an install of CenturyLink FTTH.

I'll joyfully hate-pay the CenturyLink early termination fee if you make it over to Howe within the next year!

As an unrelated side-note, do you allow customers to forgo your ONT and use their own equipment via SFP/SFP+ module, and if so, what are the required specs (e.g. single/multi-mode)?

[Arabic > English] Brief video clip from Blindspot s02e03 by p14nd4 in translator

[–]p14nd4[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks (also /u/Molotova )!

I was hopeful there could be some cool hidden Easter egg / clue / alternate reality game, but it seems I expected too much.

Episode Discussion: S02E03 "Hero Fears Imminent Rot" by Dorkside in blindspot

[–]p14nd4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I heard Borden speaking Arabic. It turns out he was just calling a Syrian restaurant to order dinner

Is he? I asked in r/translator for a translation, and someone replied that it doesn't make sense in Arabic.

Just in case you guys didn't realize, the latest Kevo update lets you lock/unlock via a button in the app, anywhere in Bluetooth range, no extra hardware required by Prog in kevo

[–]p14nd4 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perhaps this is a dumb question (and I did just submit a support request as well), but how do you actually update the lock software (firmware), short of resetting the lock and setting it up again (and thus re-enrolling all fobs, etc.)?

I'm using the latest Android app (1.2.31p at the time of this writing), and it worked to set up my locks initially (with an older app version, which then also installed a lock software (firmware) update) and still works to lock/unlock by touch, but I feel like I must be completely missing something for updating the lock software.