Irn-Bru, made by AG Barr. Scotland voted for Remain if memory serves.

The amplifi line is the plug and play line closest to the google/eero/etc. experience. It is specifically the one I was referring to which has less than enthusiastic feedback.

I neglected to mention Mikrotik. They’re a Latvian company that is also in the space. I think they’d be farther to the professional/complex end of the spectrum. Omada is in the middle, and Ubiquiti leans toward the easier to use side. They’re all going to need more work than google wifi, unfortunately.

The “other” site has a wealth of information; evanmccann.net is a good source for demystifying their product line as well.

How do a couple journalists figure this out yet the government agency, a bank, and H&R block, and the police can’t be bothered?

This can only be a good thing. I read that series on Arstechnica about the Boar’s Head listeria contamination. “Heavy meat buildup on walls”

I’ve a friend who works for an international bank in their green initiatives program.

The department for climate initiatives greenwashing at that bank is under the marketing wing. It’s all I need to know about how much the bank cares.

Google‘s (and Facebook, and all the social media ad companies’) business model is predicated on the notion they have a better profile of their victims than the other ad network. They’ll never tell your uncle about what you search for at 2am, but they’ll indirectly sell it.

The best thing to do is to run a wired backhaul, if it’s remotely possible. MoCa or power line adapters are possible options but do your research and assess your own situation. Wifi is more complex that it can seem on the surface, and wireless backhaul adds its own nuance.

With higher end products you may find that you don’t need a mesh network - just one AP may solve the problem. All my neighbours have f’ing extenders which take up a ton of airspace and the houses are 30sqm footprint.

Ubiquiti makes the UniFi line which is prosumer. You’ll need several components; unless you’ve got more than 1gbps service, the UDM is a good starting point. They also make the amplifi line; I don’t think there’s a lot of positive feedback on those products.

Tplink is a Chinese company and therefore immediately suspect in some eyes, but their Omada line is pretty reliable. They also make the Deco line for more home-focused solutions. They’ve been in the news a bit lately, more so because people don’t change passwords from what I recall, but I wanted to mention it.

Why the heck are they storing this data for 20 years anyways?

Is nostalgic fascism contagious? Seems like there’s an awful lot of it. I hate this timeline.

It’s not about the technology or the economics. It’s about the symbolism for China.

The whole “China bad America good” concept has been put in a different light of late.

Does EU/North America fear truly China because of its expansionist policies, or simply because their skin is a different colour? It’s not like the USA is above tampering in foreign government and bugging electronics.

I say go for it, Canada. If only because it’ll push Tesla off the scoreboard without the tariffs. They can’t compete.

Burying the lede a little:

Since January 2022, the average number of girls in custody has been just 11, compared with 42 a decade ago.

But more importantly, if they can’t provide the services that young female offenders need, they must be entirely missing the 98% of the young offender community that are also in desperate need of support programs.

There’s OneWeb, but it’s not for personal use unfortunately.

Unfortunately Europe has no competitior at present but more importantly they’re a long way from having a suitable (reusable, rapid cadence) launch vehicle. Ariane 6 is still not ready for prime time, the launch cadence can’t touch SpaceX, and the costs are higher. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/europes-first-ariane-6-flight-achieved-most-of-its-goals-but-ended-prematurely/

I’d leave Starlink in an instant if there was a reasonable alternative.

This is great, because it shows the possibilities. Water source heat pumps make air source look like a toy, and those in turn make conventional heat sources look prehistoric.

However, it is not uncommon in more seasonal climates for the average solar production to exceed the average energy consumption across the year, while the reality is that summer is characterized by overproduction and winter requires consistent top-ups from the grid. Adding a small wind turbine is a challenge from a charge controller perspective (you can’t just plug into an EG4) but it can really address those short, cloudy days with high consumption.

Don’t need to advance when the battle is being fought in the White House.

I fear for the future of western democracy.

A sales tax disproportionately impacts people who are lower income, as a greater percentage of their earnings go towards purchasing essential goods - and defining exclusions for sales taxes is a whole exercise. Food, easy; heat, ok. But what if i heat with electricity and also drive with electricity? Should clothes be taxed? Where do we draw the line on what constitutes luxury clothing when people buy carhartt for very different reasons depending on their income source. What about diapers, people choose to buy disposables. Condoms? Period products are a shoe-in but what about cups or reusable panties?

I don’t hate the idea, but it is complex. Like most tax schemes…

There’s a lot of talk about how taxing share grants and stock options potentially harms innovation, as it impacts startup employees. Startup doesn’t have enough cash to attract top tier employees, so they’re offered stock grants as part of compensation which is fair enough. But if they’re taxed, and the stocks are illiquid (pre IPO), the employee is going to end up paying a whole bunch of tax on something that might, in the future, be worth a certain amount.

Collecting the taxes in-kind is a simple and incredibly obvious solution now that I see it.