Support contract? No. It has all gone in-house for support. That's why they hired me. I'm good at working on old tech. Nobody supports that hardware any more. The Press is 50+ years old, the insert stuffer is 25+ years old and the label system is about 25-30 years old. They still work, and work reasonale well, especially for the age of each of the systems.

The $500/day for the laptop, is a side gig at this point. It helped me get the job at the newspaper. Both the paper and the local manufacturing companies need really old hardware and software to be able to talk to their multi-million dollar hardware that nobody can really afford to replace. It still works, except for the control system because those people keep moving on with newer versions that cannot talk to the older hardware. Some of them, like the newspaper, can't even get support from the original manufacturers because they either no longer exist, or no longer support that old but still working, hardware.

Replacement hardware for the newspaper is in the tens of millions. For the local manufacturers the replacement CNC systems start at $5 million and go up depending on what they need. Most do not see the need to replace them if they do not need to. Some of those "old" CNC machines are less than a decade old, and are sitting next to ones that are nearly 40 years old that work just as well. Both need my old style laptop to make changes. Why replace them, they still work. At $500/day with a need for 1-2 days a decade, why would you spend millions to replace a working device? That is what they are thinking.

Yes, these people are looking at upgrades. Yes they are looking at replacements. They are now gun-shy about the control systems. The big vendors aren't even offering any support for the control systems after 5 years. This is with these companies getting 20-30 loans, sometimes from the vendors themselves, to pay for these systems. I recommend to each of them, when they ask, that they buy at least 2 of the control machines (Desktop computers most of the time) and store one until the first dies. That cost is tiny compared to the cost of having to hunt for a new one in 15+ years. I also recommend open source and open hardware control system replacements for second and additional replacements. Saves a lot of hassle in the long run.

Buy the systems... interesting.

Do you want to come buy the new systems for the local newspaper?
    New label printer: $500,000
    New Insert stuffer: $1.3 Million
    New Printer press: $10+ Million.

All because we need to replace Windows XP with something newer.

What happens when it fails and we can no longer get parts? We shut down. We cannot afford a $12+ Million replacement. It would take us 50+ years, assuming newsprint survives that long, to pay it back. We are a small County-wide Newspaper. Somewhere around 20000 subscribers. Margins are already slim. How are you going to solve that? Probably the same way we are, buy making due and finding ways around any issue.

Az

We have an old Newspaper Laber called Prism. REQUIRES Windows XP SP2 due to 3 very old Propriety SCSI, and Serial cards to make it work. I'm looking for motherboards to replace the one we have before it dies. New hardware is upwards of $500,000 USD to replace it. Needs to have 3 PCI (1) slots. We can't get drivers for them either. Nobody makes them and the Manufacturer removed them.

I keep old hardware around to read old files. Have an old laptop that rents out for $500/day to local operations for their CNC machines. They need it maybe once every 5-6 years, for a single day. It has paid for it's old circa 2000 price 4 times over, and my time, since I started doing that. The business are VERY HAPPY to have it even for a day to upload new plans instead of having to purchase a new multi-million USD device to replace it instead.

THAT is the cost of closed source hardware.

Az

I go to the Movie Theater / Cinema to watch a movie. I don't want to interact with anything but the movie.

If others interfere with my enjoyment, I will take it out on the establishment for not enforce the no phones rules. To do this I will hurt them where it hurts most, their income. I will avoid them. I will ask my friends to avoid them. I will tell anyone who will listen to avoid them.

Unvetted, no-contract hiring without proper Governmental hiring oversight.

Lets see.. to get a job as a contractor for the US, I am required to have the following for every employee:
* Current Drug screening test
* Current Citizenship/Work permit documents
* Current, and clearly disclosed to the GAO, list of employees
* Pass all sorts of Safety checkes.
* Pass all sorts of background checks for any job that MIGHT even access Personal information about anyone.

All of these are listed as "publicly disclosable" items that the Government may be requested to pride to the public. This is in the contract used to hiring a contractor, not the law itself. It they are actual Federal Employees then there standards are even higher. If Mr. Musk is an appointed Department head, then he needs to stand before the Senate and be Confirmed. If he is just a Contractor then the contract needs to be vetted like any other.

Most answers will be Pass/Fail when the question gets asked. So I would like to know has Each and EVERY member of DOGE Passed all of these, and Specifically has Mr. Musk passed the Drug test? Remember, THC is still a Class I Drug, and is a Federal offense to have used. Several other Drugs that Mr. Musk claims to use are also Class I, and some are Class II that require medical observation, Medical administering, and close monitoring. These are all tested for in the 'standard' drug screening required by Federal employment contracts.

I would like to see these same answers for anyone claiming to be DOGE, and a clear Federal ID saying they are a member of DOGE before I would let them into my facility. ANYONE can claim to be DOGE, so unless you can back that up with the proper ID (which requires the other screenings) I will block entry. I will also block access to any information that I have under my control from them. Once they follow proper procedure then they may have access, but even that would be supervised.

There is nothing Traitorous about protecting ones information in the face of an "unknown" and "unsubstantiated" hunt. President Trump MUST follow the law just like the rest of us, and that law says these things need to happen. They have not, as far as I can find. So therefor until they do, this DOGE group may be Traitors themselves. They are at least *potential* criminals.

I am not going to hide behind any Anonymity on this. These people need to follow the law and do the job. Are they right to do it? Maybe. Are they doing it in the right way? Doesn't look like it to me. Are they breaking the law? Very Likely.

Az

Wish I could. I have a "RSA Security Plugin" for Edge, from one of my service lookup partners that ONLY, and I do mean ONLY, supports Windows 11. I normally run Linux Mint as well (Currently on 21.x while I fight with Windows 11). I told them I prefer Linux or Mac. They don't support either as they "are not secure." I don't know what they are thinking, but they are much more secure, out of the box, than Windows 11.

I even tried it on Windows 11 in a VirtualBox VM on Linux and it said no, it won't run ass it detects a VM. I had to purchase a machine, with Windows 11, because they can't properly support normal "military grade" RSA security on a system other than "most up to date Windows 11 using only Edge." That machine sits idle 90% of the time, because I don't need for my day to day work. Just one more device sucking power and constantly needing to be checked for Viruses and Malware. It spends more time doing updates that talking to the partner systems.

I told the partner that they need to at least support MacOS, but Linux would be good to support, especially in the industry I am in.

Truth in advertising is law as well. How many politicians would go down if we enforced that on political "promises" by the different parties/groups/PACS/Candidates? The penalty should be a ban from using that party name, funds, or even running for office for at least 10 years, or a disillusion of the Party if it isn't a candidate in the wrong.

Think about every promise you were ever given by a campaign, or PAC. How many of them were outright lies? Not "I tried but failed", "there is a law against that and nobody wants to try to repeal it" and such outside controls that prevent even the direct attempt to fulfill that promise. Things like "I will, on day one, replace Obamacare with something else" or "I will have Mexico Pay for it". The first one, has a law that has to be worked around so would be somewhat acceptable. The second, was never even attempted which would mean it was a lie.

Is this exclusive to one party or the other? One candidate or another? No. Every singe one of them, since at least WWII, has lied at some point in their campaign. Not one of them was charged with that law. Political speech seems to be exempt from everything, including reality.

It takes more Delta-V (aka fuel/thrust/etc) to push something towards Sol than it does to push it out towards the Oort cloud. Even if you don't care how long it takes to be disposed of, it still costs more to go inward that it does outward in our solar system.

I hat T-Mobile for over 2 years. When it was on the 4G network it was stable, reliable and had few issues. When they removed half the 4G radios on the tower and replaced them with 5G my, T-Mobile become total trash. VPN WILL NOT WORK on their 5G. They use Dual industrial-grade NAT and have it configured to change IP's every 3-5 seconds on the outbound side. I tested this from my ISP and from my end. VPN's won't handle such a fast switching without seriously compromising them. All T-Mobile has to do is change the outside NAT configuration to not switch IP's every other packet and instead hang on to that path for 2 to 30 minutes. The VPNs have little to no issue with it at that point. On top of that 5G is very susceptible to trees blocking the signal. In the spring and summer I kept getting disconnected. During the winter, I had few connection issues unless there was a big storm.

Switch from AT&T Wireless (4G only, and poor at that in my location). Switched not to Spectrum. Had a couple of issues in the first 3 months. They came out the next day for each of those. I have now had little to no trouble in the past year since the last fix. The only reason I even had to use AT&T and T-Mobile wireless was because NOTHING else existed in my area. Too many trees for satellite, no DSL, 12K max speed dialup (unusable even for dialup). So when I watched Spectrum's fiber being put in, I started calling weekly to find out when it was going live. The day it went live, I was on the phone ordering it. They installed 4 days later (holiday weekend in there) and I have been mostly happy since.

Whatever comes of this, don't give them ANY money before they roll out the expansion(s) and can prove that it is up and running at least to the minimum federal broadband specifications across ALL of the expansion area.. Make them take the chance that they won't get it as well. That may slow down build out, but it will stop the taking and pocketing.

If they want to fund something like the recent Broadband access discount plans (My terminology) then that would be reasonable. They would still need proof that people are using it, and that they do qualify under the federal discount plan.

Just remember, some placed have low availability, and even those that have availability have low, at best, speeds. They shouldn't be charged $100/month for 1.5Mb ADSL, which is near the low end for my area. Local (non ILEC, or CLEC) ISP's that re-sell access, aka 'Partners', with AT&T are seeing major price hikes. Not because AT&T is raising rates, again, but because they have stopped all ADSL discounts. They also did so without notice (they can, per their Terms of Service Agreement). Now every ISP selling ADSL using AT&T lines pays full price across the board. Yet, they are offering steep partner discounts for their fiber services. Problem with that is in my general area, fiber doesn't yet exist in the last mile. Most of the copper lines in the area were placed in the ground in the late 60s and early 70's according to county records.So it is rotting away so even ADSL doesn't work well at times. Dialup, which the company I work for still offers and has customers, barely works over those old lines. Most get an about 24K connection even with good hardware based modems.

Just spent 3 days working with Windows support, Windows 10 wouldn't do updates (or go to Microsoft sites). Final solution was to wipe and reinstall. Worked quite well, until we started restoring files. The one that broke things... Office 365. That was 2 weeks ago. Microsoft still hasn't figured out what is/was causing the issue. If the machine didn't need to run some very specific windows-only software it would be Linux at this point.

Now windows is stable, and I no longer need to worry about updated breaking something. This is assuming it doesn't 'need' to phone home for something.

Interesting thought. AI is supposed to be good at making decisions. CEO's are supposed to make decisions. Why not replace them first? Maybe the C-Suite people need to think a bit harder on just who will get replaced in the long run. The Old CEO leaves (before they can force AI replacement) and instead of hiring a new one, they save Millions on just putting an AI in. That would give millions back to the shareholders and increase profits.

Too bad it will backfire in the long run. To many logical decisions without any empathy to temper it, or creativity to expand. Employees will get replaced with AI and Robots.. more and more people out of work, fewer to buy the product, more and more laid off, etc. Even the top people should be able to see this. Too bad they only look at the short term profits instead of how to make a company last into the future and future profits.

Try telnet-ing to a specific port.
Each port later became a channel in IRC.

You had to apply for a login, then use telnet once approved. Most servers has 20-30 ports and each port had several hundred users, and no scroll back buffer.
No services, your login was your name. No colors. Talk moving too fast for ascii art (was all messed up by others).

There were the days.

Anything 'said' isn't worth the paper, or bits, it is written on. Unless it is in the actual agreement then the FTC should say they can't trust them to hold up the verbal part of the agreement. They should then deny the merger.

To California, DO NOT LET AT&T HAVE THIS.

In Michigan, the MI Legislature changed the law to allow companies like AT&T discontinue the copper land line in favor of Fiber and 4g (at the time). AT&T's public claim was that they needed to be free from the law that said they had to provide copper lines. The law has a clause that says something to the effect of "service must exist" to the location. The original bill said a "good quality service must exist" to any and all locations. I know people that have build housing in semi-developed areas (not truly rural) and can't get service. Cell service is spotty at best, and non-existent normally, Fiber hasn't been run, and if pressed AT&T will say they don't have it in their current plan (5- and 10- year plans). Under the old law, AT&T (since the area is AT&T) would be required to build out. Now, they just ignore these people claiming their call coverage is good enough. Take a cellphone out there... no signal from anyone, yet it is good enough.

So what to these people do? I tell them to take AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, et all. to court for lack of 911 service. So far, there is 1 case getting started (and asking for class action). It hasn't had a court date, or hearing date, set yet. Lawyers are arguing if it should go to Arbitration (AT&T's) or not.

Just don't let them off the hook. Make sure that they are still REQUIRED to build land-line serve to the locations, even if it is a different kind of connection. Let them build out with fiber, or let them have their 5G but only if they can PROVE, in court level, that it is a good connection.

Anything less and AT&T (and others) will take the money and run. They have already done so in Michigan.