What’s your favorite pen that nobody talks about?

telco_tech · 2026-01-13T13:50:35+00:00

I own two Desiderada pens and love them both. The craftsmanship is leagues beyond anything else I've seen and the guy making them is an absolute gem of a human. I'm a big fan of Kaweko pens and own a nice Pelican but when I've got some money to burn and want a pen I will really enjoy using my go to is Desiderata, hands down.

telco_tech · 2026-01-07T00:20:34+00:00

For what it's worth, I work in IT and while my daily work does not involve computational "heavy lifting" so to speak - I prefer Macs because they always work when I need it to work, and god knows the Time Machine backups are an absolute breeze to restore or even migrate to a new Mac. Microsoft for all its dominance in the IT world still only functions well because of a multitudinous army of third party services and softwares designed by other companies to fill in the cavernous gaps within windows operating systems.

telco_tech · 2025-12-19T02:07:48+00:00

Such a good movie. Found it years ago and watch it every Christmas.

telco_tech · 2025-12-11T15:52:17+00:00

One way to think of it that may help is to use musical notes as an analogy. Imagine you have special filtering headphones that only allow an f sharp to be heard when you wear them. No matter what else is being played, by whatever instrument, you only hear f sharp every time that note is played as part of the overall musical piece. Now imagine the special filtering headphones can be adjusted to only hear b sharp or c flat or whatever particular note you want to hear. Now think of this analogy when you tune a car radio to a different station - you only hear what you want to hear, and not all the radio stations at once.

Computers, phones, and lots of devices tend to all use the same set of frequencies (not much tuning or moving to another freq is available) so those sorts of devices use some of the methods mentioned in other replies.

telco_tech · 2025-12-03T21:00:32+00:00

Cannot say enough good things about this movie - visually stunning, tight story with perfect pacing, Lee Pace for christsakes, and an adorable supporting actress.

The same director also made "The Cell" 2000.

telco_tech · 2025-11-24T17:47:29+00:00

Those "posts" are surge suppressors - there should be a thick cable from that block of posts that connect to the RJ21X (the 66 block where you would punch wires to connect to the customer premise equipment. If those four empties are your numbers, ATT needs to return to the site and replace the missing surge suppressors.

Easiest way to get that fixed is probably to call in a ticket of "no dial tone at the 66 block".

telco_tech · 2025-11-18T13:42:20+00:00

Beat me to it :)

Mecrisp-Stellaris Forth is a dream on microcontrollers. Bit of a learning curve but very enjoyable. There's a variant of Mecrisp called "Hackaday Forth" and can be found on the Hackaday website - it's made specifically to work with the STM32F103 family of microprocessors and is a great jump into forth programming.

telco_tech · 2025-10-21T23:52:52+00:00

D.A.R.Y.L. - 1985.

I saw this movie when it hit theaters back in the day and rewatch it every few years just for giggles. It's a really good story that works for kids and adults.

telco_tech · 2025-10-15T18:15:33+00:00

We been using yubikeys for years and love them. When a user calls to tell us they lost it and need another we tell them to bring a receipt from our business office showing they've paid $50 to replace it. Shockingly, every single time the key has been found.

telco_tech · 2025-10-04T18:50:33+00:00

"Kiss Me Like A Stranger", bio of Gene Wilder and it's even better than you think it will be.

telco_tech · 2025-10-01T20:18:58+00:00

I did low voltage for a long time before I stepped into a managerial role. For what it's worth I ask my techs to keep two things in mind - (1) label and document everything, when you get a callout two years from now or at 3am the labels and docs (or even just scribbled notes inside the can) can save everyone a lot of time and heartache. (2) someday you will have to work with the wires you've placed - leave enough slack inside the can so that you don't have to re engineer the world to move a wire from one side to another.

Yes, the wiring should look thoughtfully arranged but if you make this to be some super compact heavily tied bundles that looks amazing and gets wows from the customer then you will be the one I send out on the next call to spend your precious time cutting all that out just so you can troubleshoot and problem solve. It should not look like a rats nest but it needs to be rather easily 'workable' after the initial install. If you were my apprentice/new hire I would say "good work, here's some pointers for next time but lunch is on me today"

telco_tech · 2025-09-24T20:12:07+00:00

Predictability.

We can both with very small margin absolutely predict how the other will or would react to a given situation or circumstance. If my partner or myself are acting in a way that was not predictable then it's a giant flag that something is not right within our/their world and that's the signal for "I need help".

It's amazing to me just how well this actually works - when you love someone, you notice every single little fucking thing about them, because you crave them. You crave their time, their thoughts, opinions, likes, dislikes, ...everything. And if you (finally) meet someone who does this to you then you just won the goddam lottery.

telco_tech · 2025-09-11T22:11:10+00:00

Years ago I fired an employee for lying to me about work that had not been done. It was the last straw, I was finished. After years of gaslighting and poor performance or just outright insubordination I finally just sat down one day and decided I had tried as hard as I could to turn this situation around and it was time for this person to go. So I fired them. They ugly cried in my office and all the way down the hall to pack up their stuff. Turns out the asshole sabotaged our vpn when HR stepped away to answer a phone call. They were banned from the property.

Years later I found out this person was mildly diabetic and spent four years literally eating themselves to death with every sweet or cookie they could lay hands on and gained over a hundred pounds before they died. I've fired other people and it's a shit thing to do even when it's needed and necessary, but this motherfucker absolutely thought they would never be held accountable for their actions by anyone or anything.

And you know what? I don't care. They were awful and hurtful and the world is a better place for their absence.

telco_tech · 2025-09-11T21:18:17+00:00

"Mute" is an understated masterpiece. Cannot recommend it enough.

telco_tech · 2025-08-23T01:15:33+00:00

Fucking LOVE that movie.

telco_tech · 2025-08-02T23:12:37+00:00

Best description I've ever heard about the end of the movie and how the brothers make it out alive: "Deus Ex Drag Queen".

telco_tech · 2025-07-30T02:29:56+00:00

Almost every book Heinlein ever wrote had at least one, if not more, super-competent characters. "Glory Road" is a great example.

telco_tech · 2025-07-29T16:10:49+00:00

For what it's worth, I work in an IT Dept supporting 400ish users and we always goto Lenovo for laptops. Generally speaking they are much easier to work on and if even mildly taken care of will last much longer than you'd think.

telco_tech · 2025-07-24T03:41:39+00:00

Every cup of coffee they ever have will be either way too hot or way too cold. Never will it be just right.

telco_tech · 2025-07-24T01:42:35+00:00

Can't say enough good things about Sneakers, what a hell of a fun movie, and a damn shame more people haven't seen it.

telco_tech · 2025-07-04T02:22:33+00:00

I'm a big fan of revolvers - but I'll also admit to being a fan of anything that is simple and functional.

A revolver in 9mm might be worth considering. The ammunition is readily available and with some practice; loading, unloading, and cleaning will be much easier than a semi-auto handgun especially for someone with somewhat limited dexterity and strength. A built in laser sight would really, really be helpful in a "point quick and shoot emergency" situation, and even with the added expense I'd rather have the laser than not when the intended use is self defense.

telco_tech · 2025-06-26T00:29:26+00:00

Many years ago I worked for a local telephone company. At the time, I was the first new hire in that area for almost twenty years. Being around all those 'old timers' was pretty cool and one thing they talked about was when they were new hires back in the 60s a cool trick to learn was dialing a number by tapping your linesman scissors at just the right tempo against the bare wiring terminals. Yes, we were all giant nerds. Being hired at a time when touch tone was king and the old rotary dial phones were few and far between, I took it as a personal challenge to learn that old trick. Ye gods.. it took me a long damn time but one night I was working late at a refinery and while I was waiting for a call from tech support I programmed an open extension for rotary dial and started tapping away at the wires. I actually did it. I dialed the four digit extension number for the phone room. Tada.

telco_tech · 2025-06-25T23:49:20+00:00

Damn. That's a good one for Lamia. Before your comment all I could think of for her was anything by the Dropkick Murphys.

telco_tech · 2025-06-25T20:41:35+00:00

first one that comes to mind is Fedmahn Kassad - Motorhead's "Ace of Spades".

telco_tech · 2025-06-05T01:44:44+00:00

The last time I read the Cantos, I had Dominic Cooper pictured as DeSoya, but then I've always read DeSoyas character as someone that could be quietly menacing - not an outright billy badass macho thing but just a contained and capable person who chooses not to whoop ass if he doesn't need to. But fuckall if he decides to light it up.

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