Oh. The ones I’m referring to are the modern Amazon lockers & such, reliant on modern technology. Courier goes up, enters auth code. It then asks you to scan a pkg. Then there’s the prompt, is the pkg: SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE, X-LARGE? Upon selection, it pops open a corresponding door. One pkg per locker. Rinse & repeat until all pkgs delivered to lockers, and recipients are notified of delivery.

Once you get the hang of it, it’s actually super slick & helpful for everyone.

Kind of related but not as high-tech or secure, some nice apartment complexes are being built with sizeable delivery rooms. Which works unless you’ve got a klepto in your complex.

With varying degrees of success, you can create accounts with the delivery companies & specify what you want done with your pkg. Deliver to any address you like, or hold at facility or an access point. This is your best option, to dig a little deeper, take some time & really take control of how you want your deliveries. As best you can. 🙂

With most US residential pkgs, it is left because it’s easy & economical. A third to half of the time, it’s cheap bullshit. Theft or loss is often not a big enough problem to warrant not delivering the first time.

Calling every person that doesnt receive their pkg in person is patently ridiculous. Full-time drivers have anywhere from 130 stops to 300+ stops. Let’s say 2/3 don’t accept the pkg in person (it’s more than 2/3); that is 86-200+ phone calls or 86-200+ stops’ worth of pkgs, per driver, to be recycled back through facility.

The first time most residential pkgs are attempted delivery, the shipping company makes like 5-10¢ on that pkg. Say it goes back to facility, to be delivered tomorrow, as you said. That very low value pkg, to be recycled back into the system & taking up space, to be processed & put on a truck for delivery the next day, to be delivered for basically no profit/breakeven. Awesome 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻. Let’s say 2nd attempt is unsuccessful, and we can’t just leave the package on the doorstep when the person isn’t home because that’s such an obviously stupid thing to do. Driver starts swearing, sticks another notice on the door, 5+ people handle the pkg again…you know the deal…and the 3rd day it is delivered at a loss or, if failed, is held at facility for customer pickup. The company has lost money, and on some cheap foreign-made t-shirts from Kohl’s, no less.

In short: they’re doing the best they can, every single day, by the numbers. 🙂 Looking at the big picture, it works pretty well! Except for Amazon, they suck, but everybody keeps giving them money so basically they can fail up forever until that changes.

Hope this sheds some light on how logistics work behind the scenes. Leave some snacks, drinks out for your delivery drivers! The real-life Santas!

This is a relatively new technology; we have this in the states as well. As the systems get cheaper, more intuitive, more well-understood, they’re rolling out to more places. I’ve seen one in a very small town, and there’s a number of them outside of middle-high class apartment complexes.

Very even-handed. I agree, but it’s in the same vein. It’s similar enough. I like to bolster my arguments with such facts & events, and I’ll inevitably find some person who will say, “I never knew that…”

We need knowledge baked into our collective consciousness, and we need to know how to find solutions. The problem once again comes down to people, and lying. Nothing is new under the sun. How do we discern the truth?

Of course the complaints sound legitimate. And idk I am inclined to side with them, if they’re honest & the complaints are based on fact.

With their commercial launch fast approaching, the parties also expressed an expectation that competitors would continue to make misleading claims and draconian demands to further delay Commission action and limit service to American consumers. Indeed, each time that SpaceX has demonstrated that it would not cause harmful interference to other operators—often based on those parties’ own claimed assumptions—those competitors have moved the goalposts or have claimed their analysis should not have been trusted in the first place. These operators’ shapeshifting arguments and demands should be seen for what they are: last-minute attempts to block a more advanced supplemental coverage partnership and siphon sensitive information to aid their own competing efforts. The Commission must not allow competitive gamesmanship to stand in the way of lifesaving service for American consumers.

I have seen a lot of this in my life, too. AT&T is a shitty company. Verizon is very good generally speaking, but overpriced. Some of you might not be old enough to remember, but SMS texting started out being sent over a never used emergency reserve 5% partition of cell towers. They were charging us all $10+/mo for something that cost them virtually nothing. All that to say, I don’t fucking trust AT&T, Verizon, or TMobile. ¯\(°_o)/¯ Do you??? Any of them will do anything to make a buck, and as SpaceX says, any one of them will say anything to sandbag their competition (while trying to copy ideas & build their own version). These cell phone companies are the worst of all; they’ve been allowed to lie, cheat, and steal for decades. Their claims don’t have to be true, they just have to “sound legitimate”.

I’m thinking…this is all about a signal. A signal that can be turned on & off, a signal that doesn’t physically harm any equipment but might hamper their ability to send & receive their own signal. Both sides are making radically different claims, maybe there’s a little truth to both, but one has to be significantly closer to right than the other.

In theory, blind tests could be performed without informing AT&T/Verizon. Or hell even the FCC, but it is unwise to piss off the US Gov’t Alphabet Gang. If there is this terrible interference, alright. We should be able to notice that, and quickly. Shut it down, turn the signals off. If it’s done and SpaceX, TMobile are correct & there is no discernible interference, this is where things could get really delicious. You just let it go for 6 months or a year. 🙂 Then you announce a testing date, they kick & scream per usual, it goes through… and then if they start saying “oH My GOd, ouR NetWErkz R goING CRazY becAUSe of this signal, that started on this date.” Yeah, and everything was fine before? 🤔 Oh man, we were great & everything was great, no problems before this date. Well guess what, you dumb bitch??? We’ve been using this signal for 6+ months before the test date. That means you’re lying.

Anyway. I know it’ll probably never happen, even if it should. I’ve watched these people lie to us, spend money & effort tearing down their competition or fighting common fucking sense. Like Apple refusing to switch iPhones to USB-C, when they themselves were using USB-C on their Macbooks & iPads for years at that point. I don’t think it is an exaggeration when I say these people are hampering progress, innovation, and getting in the way of us enjoying a better world. They hamstring mankind, they hold back the greatness & potential of society. It’s high time we identify, label these people as such & treat them accordingly.

Turn the damn satellite signals on. Do some testing. See. What. Happens.

…Oh, no! Anyway. Just giving people one more reason to finally make the switch to Firefox or something different.

Google Chrome warns about disabling uBlock Origin. I warn Google Chrome that they’re being a little bitch & they’re going to lose users.

Rumble/Locals

Rivian is an expensive failure. 😂 They’re going to steal VW 's money, whatever is invested, and they’re going to spend it all before VW can get it back. So…they’re going to lose at least $1B.

This is actually really funny because I think Michael Knowles talked about this exact same thing either 2 or 3 days ago. The conclusion was: we have these instincts. Some people just really like exercising them, and others, they’re exercising fear/horror/disgust in a safe, controlled environment because that helps to prepare them for the fears, horrors, disgust they’ll face in real life.

Not that they’re thinking that consciously. But subconsciously.

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Grayjay!! 🙌🏻

Sounds like a skill issue. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nice!!

It didn’t have to be an evil fuck. Could have just been an ignorant fuck. “Do not attribute to malice what can easily be explained by ignorance”.

Disregarding what we know now: it would be great to have an exfoliating bead that didn’t break down or decay. I used it, sometimes, and it worked well for its intended purpose. We just didn’t think anything about it, and they probably didn’t, either.

It is, indirectly, a cause of a common fetish: a nice, deep, bass-filled voice. Lots of women appreciate that.

I have plenty of boots & shovels. 😂 Again, it’s not a matter of “luxury”…I am concerned about both personal health & the snow being gone in a timely fashion after a snowfall.

Men who shovel snow are at an increased risk for heart attacks. And that’s just heart trouble; let’s not forget general sprains, strains, & aches. Possible slip-and-falls, I can’t imagine having a bad fall when I’m in my 70s, 80s+.We often see a few significant snow events per year, and to have a surefire way to automatically melt it would be great.

To be fully transparent about my situation…I have a big-ass tractor, too. I can clear the snow without physical exertion. But it’s over at another property, and after a fresh snowfall, I sometimes have to “schedule” time with the tractor jockeying against my parents & my sister, BIL. Annoying.

…but that’s not all, with the tractor method. Extremely, dangerously cold situations can even become too cold for tractors to operate. The diesel will gel unless more questionable additives, methods are used. Operating a tractor is not free, either, and puts more hours on an expensive piece of machinery. There have also been maybe 4 times where I’m clearing the snow, and some kid is on the road in his $2K car, and gets way too close to my $90K tractor when we’re all slogging in terrible, soggy/cold/poor visibility conditions. I’m always polite, of course, but then they leave & I audibly bellow to myself I don’t fucking need this. I don’t!! Why should I haggle with family, operate this good equipment, around the general public if I could avoid that entirely with a heated concrete driveway?

So the only real concern with the square-cube law is physical space occupied, and/or cost. Space isn’t an issue on the farm. 🤠 And sand by the ton is cheap. I was personally thinking about digging a big-ass hole to hold the sand. Line it with junk bricks and/or more concrete, only put money into an insulated “cap”.

The water left on the driveway is an interesting thought, but the driveway won’t be perfectly flat. It’ll have a downward slant, towards the road. If you think it’s enough of an issue, I could maybe put some designs in the concrete that route snow melt run-off off the concrete & into some grass on either side. I know people that heat driveways & they’re fine/dry; it can be done, I’ll ask around. I know it’s marketed as a luxury, but I want heated driveways normalized.

I DO need a lot of heat for this heated driveway, I know it’s ambitious, but I have plenty of reasons for wanting it. Outlined above. Heart attacks/hospital visits? Expensive, waste of time. Tractors, “sharing” operation costs, risk of accidents…expensive. Waste of time. I’m going to pay any way you look at it. Why not pay for a recirculating heat pump, its operation & watch my problems literally melt away??

Forgot to address the gov assist stuff, it’s legit actually, but it’s not exactly the boon normies think it is. So you buy & install solar, with evidence, you document everything & jump through all their little hoops. When you meet their requirements, you’re given a 30% or whatever ‘credit’ on your federal income taxes. Which isn’t exactly free money, but it’s better than a kick in the head & it’s rewarding you for going solar.

Now you wanna talk fucking sus??? All those third-party solar installers, namely, those that “will install for free” or “costs you nothing out of pocket 🤗”. Those guys are sus as all hell. They’re predatory, they’re not trying to help you! Only enrich themselves. Again, IIRC, sometimes they take your gov’t tax credit money somehow. And/or they charge you monthly, or they take money/power you generate via the solar panels…I don’t trust any of it; you’re inviting random-ass people onto your property & they’re installing thousands of dollars in gear you don’t technically own, and you’re pressing your property into servitude until it’s “paid off” in 10, 15, 20 years. Don’t do it. Buy it, own it, get all the benefits for yourself.

So here’s the deal, in a nutshell:

I’m afraid if I “go public” with my goddamn private solar energy setup, AKA I opt into a grid tie-in deal where I feed my excess electric back into the grid, I pay extra for setup. And IIRC my electric provider charges monthly for the “privilege” of tie-in. And these are just the devils we know about! I take the money, I subject my system & my property to scrutiny from third party companies & my state, who knows what stupid shit they might come up with & force onto me.

The best, simplest, cleanest solution I can think of is to privately install enough renewable energy to power my home. And a robust energy storage system that can power my needs when the sun isn’t shining, wind isn’t blowing, etc.

IIRC my electric provider charges $10 or $20, monthly, whether you use their electric or not. <=$240 annually? I call that a small price to pay for energy independence with the insurance of an established electric provider able to take over if system(s) fail.

Alternatively, if renewable energy production/STORAGE options become better & more reasonable in cost, just overbuild like hell & go fully off-grid. Discontinue electric service. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s tempting…had a blackout just last night. 😂

That is correct, it stores heat only. A little bit about my situation: I have a drafty AF, 3200 sq ft farmhouse. Yes, I know I need to fix that…all things cost a lot of money, to do well.

A hot water tank tie-in would be excellent too, of course.

Additionally, I’d put the heated sand to work heating a large concrete driveway, a sidewalk in the winter months. While this can be classed as a “luxury”, I view it as an investment in my health & well-being, as well as reducing risk & increasing my reliability. Eventually I’d like to throw up a polebarn style garage, with heated concrete pad, pull on the sand battery to heat that as well. Winter is a big problem where I live!! And a massive pain in my ass.

Please be kind, I’ve heard talk like this before, but tbh I don’t know what it means: > “because otherwise square-cube law fucks you hard.”

What does this mean? 🤔 ELI5? TIA, I like these convos. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻