Why? How does knowing how politics worked before I could vote, help me as a voter today?

I understand enough about politics to cast my vote and beyond the act of voting, I generally don’t follow politics. I vote based on party platforms (what they intend to do) and the likelihood of those things happening. Eg, if a party was to say that they’ll make everyone rich, I would consider that statement to be delusional, unrealistic and not something that could be fulfilled even if that party was voted in. This is an extreme example, but I think you get my meaning.

Beyond doing my due diligence in figuring out who I want to vote for, and then voting for that party… What else do I realistically need?

My district always elects the same party anyways, whether I vote for them or not. I’ve landed in a gerrymandered location and that party basically always wins, but I still vote regardless.

IMO, I shouldn’t need to take a political history course to be considered to be a responsible voter.

You think politics are in my control in any way, shape, or form? They’ve gerrymandered my vote to irrelevance.

I still vote, I look at the platforms and vote for whomever I feel serves my interests the most, not that the party’s platform means jack or shit. They’re all just pandering to whatever they know you want to hear, and once they get into power, they do whatever the hell they want.

My district leans a particular way, and whether I vote with them, or against them, the same party is elected to govern. I’d say my vote is pretty useless in that context.

I was too young to vote, pre-9/11, and had even less interest in politics than I do now. I’ve vaguely followed along since I got registered to vote when I got old enough to do so, but it’s not like learning about what happened before I was registered to vote will help me in any way. I make the best choice based on the information that is available, and in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

Alright, just stay off my lawn and we’re cool.

Yeah, what’s this fucker on about? I’m an adult that doesn’t even get carded at the liquor store anymore, I fucking swear whenever I damn well please and as often as I give a shit to. Nothing wrong with some cursing, especially at those young fucks that won’t stay off my goddamned lawn. Shit, they’re at it again.

Brb, gotta yell at some asshole kids.

I was alive for 9/11 and I don’t know the difference.

I don’t care for politics.

When I need to sleep and can’t, my go to is a relatively mindless game that I’ve gotten exceedingly good at automating my way through. Something like Sudoku, solitaire (specifically Klondike), or something. Usually on a digital device so I don’t have to move too much to play and I don’t have to worry about physical cards, shuffling, etc.

If it’s a particularly bad night I can pair that with some music. I find either ambient trance or something similar, to be the best for this. One of my favorite “go the fuck to sleep” albums is called “Dreamland” by Robert Miles (may he rest in peace). Alternatively, I find nature/rain/thunderstorm sounds to be particularly calming for me, though YMMV. The calm pitter-patter of raindrops falling seems to really put me in a sleeping mood.

Combining these generally gets me ready to snooze the fastest. The other option I have is mediation, but you need to be practiced at getting into the right headspace for it to be effective. Meditation isn’t really what you’re after since you have said that basically sitting around with nothing going on is when you start to panic, which is generally how mediation begins, so I’m not sure it will be super helpful.

The only additional advice, which is a bit of an offshoot from the mediation thing, is that trying to not think is a contradiction. You can’t try not to do something; unless you have some issues with impulse control, the “act” of not doing something is the antithesis of trying. You can’t try to clear your mind, you clear your mind by not thinking, if you’re thinking about clearing your mind, then that’s a thought which, if present, precludes you having a clear mind.

You have to stop thinking, not just try to put things out of your mind, but stop all active thought and analysis. It is way easier to say, than it is to do, and I wouldn’t pretend it’s easy at all. I learned how to do this through meditation, and it’s a fat departure from how you normally operate mentally, and not an easy thing to achieve. One of the strategies I’ve used is when your brain assaults you with a thought, you recognise it’s existence, but refuse to interact/engage/analyse it at all, and just let that wash over you, and into oblivion. Again, easier said than done. Not allowing your thoughts to latch onto ideas and allowing your mind to be quiet, without commenting on, about, or examining every passing thought, does not come naturally.

I think of it a bit like this: take the example of your mind being a street in a busy city, every individual on the street is an independent thought you might engage with. This idea is a bit like sitting by yourself and watching everything around you without getting involved. Someone walks past screaming about some topic, like how the world is going to end and you just watch them walk by and don’t comment on the matter. You recognise they’re there, you just don’t get involved. Your passive demeanor does not and should not imply you either agree, nor disagree with their statements or viewpoint, you are just present, observing them making a scene. Eventually they move on to yell about it in another location and you give it no further thought.

I hope that makes sense. Of course, modern society with all the social interactions we have, whether online or in person, always gives us the option to engage in discussion about everything and we’re often encouraged to do so. People will outright ask for your opinion when having IRL conversations at times, which is a prime example of this conditioning. If you’re able to break away from the need to have an opinion on everything and anything that crosses your path, and value people’s opinions exactly as much as required, which isn’t much, then you can break free, and you don’t have to bother yourself with everyone’s opinion and making yours heard. IMO, there’s no value in sharing your opinion, especially when the recipient of that opinion has their own opinion which obviously will not change based on what you could say, so why bother even having one? It takes mental effort and time away from what’s important to you to engage in such trivialities, when the outcome is unaffected by anything you think or say. Why invest the time and effort having an opinion when nobody cares what your opinion is enough to for it to have any impact on what happens? This isn’t a value statement about you or your opinion, this is a value statement about any would be recipient of your opinion, they don’t care, that’s a problem, but it’s a problem for them to solve; your opinion is valid, and if they can’t see the validity in your opinion, why waste your time and effort creating one just so they can ignore it.

You cannot control the actions of others. You can’t change what they care about. Both of these things are issues that the opposing individual must address about themselves, that you have no way to change about them. Save yourself the grief, and just don’t bother with it. It sounds like you have enough on your plate, you don’t need to add their crap to your pile.

With all that being said, it’s a radical departure from the accepted social “norm” so it’s a lot of stuff that’s easier said than done. I’m sorry that you are going through this. I don’t know all the details and I don’t have the answers; but I’ve been though some rough shit, and it always sucks. I value you and your opinion, so if you want to reply, I’ll be happy to hear anything you wish to share. IMO, it sucks right now but the fact that you’re reaching out to anyone for help is a positive sign. Do not be afraid to ask for the help you require, it is not a sign of weakness to need help, it is a sign of strength and character to recognise that you require assistance and you are willing to ask for that assistance. It’s brave and demonstrates a strong understanding of when you are unable to handle things alone.

We all need a little help sometimes. If you want to DM me, to inquire further on anything I’ve said, or to simply rant/vent, or if you just want to chat about technology (or literally anything) as a means of distraction, I’m happy to oblige. I believe my matrix account is linked to Lemmy, so that’s also an option.

All the best OP.

AI in the current state of technology will not and cannot replace understanding the system and writing logical and working code.

GenAI should be used to get a start on whatever you’re doing, but shouldn’t be taken beyond that.

Treat it like a psychopathic boiler plate.

He’d just be an idiot faster.

Got a pretty bad case of food poisoning last month. Didn’t really eat anything for a couple of days.

My SO had it worse. She was throwing up almost everything she ate for over a week. After about 4-5 days, I was like. I’ll drive you to the emergency myself, but I can’t force you to go.

She ended up waiting like three more days after that and calling her primary care physician.

She’s mostly better now but it was the worst I’ve ever seen her.

For better or worse, she did lose a decent amount of weight during that week+ of being sick.

Well, I’m probably going to try to get my ccnp for kicks. I’ll re-do my CCNA, then do my ccnp. By the time I go for my NA cert I’ll pretty much be ready to go for the np cert.

I’ll build a new resume emphasizing my network stuff, though my resume is already fairly heavily focused on networking as is, and try again.

I’m pretty happy with my job in almost every way, I know most of the things I would need to know to be successful, despite it being a more generalist position, and my co-workers are cool. Management is better than most, and the pay is more than the last two generalist positions I’ve worked, plus it’s work from home, so I’m pretty comfortable where I am for now. The pay, despite being higher than I’ve gotten previously, is a pretty far cry from what I probably deserve, just way too low, under $55k USD (I’m not in the US, but the conversion puts me under 55). From what I’ve seen online, median salary for a systems admin, which is basically what my job mostly entails, is around $73k USD… So I’m around $20k/yr shy.

I know network admins are similar, depending on the complexity/importance of the network they administrate. I’m aware of people in networking that are making more than 100k USD a year; and right now I consider that to be where things start to cap off for networking. I’d be pretty happy with $73k USD.

Yep, I’m sure they do.

Realistically, does any average consumer know what’s on which circuit?

Spanning the split phase will screw you up, across breakers won’t be fun but shouldn’t pose any serious problems, as long as it’s not in different sides of the split phase.

I’m pretty sure they say this because actually explaining what will work and what won’t either requires significant prior knowledge of power systems, or a couple of paragraphs of explainers before you can get a rough picture of what the hell they’re driving at.

Everyone I know who has used powerline, just plug it in and see if it works. Those who were lucky, say it’s great and works without issue, etc. Those who were not lucky say the opposite.

I’m just over here watching the fireworks, eating popcorn.

This is the main reason why I quit Facebook and other services. Anytime you access them from mobile via a web browser it corners you into a “download our app” page. Facebook started doing it with messenger and I knew I had to get out.

I’m not giving Zuckerberg that level of access to my data.

What, like the CCNA? Which I achieved and it expired last year, and got me nowhere?

I prefer linkin_park_numb.mp3.com

It just hit different

I feel this, especially since I’m more into networking, but my work is more generalist.

I open my mouth about networking and people’s eyes glaze over. Even very experienced senior people can’t really understand what I’m talking about when it comes to some of the more intermediary networking concepts. Meanwhile I tune into a podcast that’s networking focused and they’re basically speaking Latin for me.

There’s so much that I don’t know. I get the broad strokes of things but I’m hopelessly lost on so many of the more nuanced bits of networking.

I really want to break away from generalist work and get into a network focused position, but after 10 years as a generalist in various MSP companies, most places won’t take me seriously as a networker and won’t even sit down for an interview.

I’m good at other stuff, damn near expert level with some things, but my passion is networks and the workplaces I’ve been at just don’t care to help me learn any of it. My current place barely has any networking more complex than a profile based L2L VPN… Switches are basically ignored, and VLANs are rare.

I facepalm every time I discover that the guest network is just bridged into the same subnet as the LAN. I’ve raised the issue a few times and never been given the green light to fix it, often because the network isn’t able to be managed remotely.

You kids. Got off my lawn. Leave me in peace with my scour.net.

I don’t think either answer is wrong.

I’ve been doing IT work for more than a decade, I was a nerd/“computer guy” well before that. I’ve had a focus on networking in the past 15-20 years. You learn a few things.

I try to be humble and learn what I can where I can, I know that I definitely do not know everything about it, and at the same time I try to be generous and share what I’ve learned when I can.

So if you have questions, just ask. I either already know, or I can at least point you in the right direction.

It definitely sounds like you have some challenges ahead. I personally prefer MoCA over wireless, simply because you can control what devices are able to be a part of the network, and reduce the overall interference from external sources and connections.

With WiFi, being half duplex, only one station can transmit at a time (with come caveats). Whether that station is a part of your network, or it is simply operating on the same frequency/channel, doesn’t matter. So in high density environments, you can kind of get screwed by neighbors.

MoCA is also half duplex (at least it was the last time I checked) so having a 2.5G MoCA link, to a 1GbE connection (on the ethernet side) should provide similar, or the same experience as pure ethernet (1G full duplex)… The “extra” bandwidth on the MoCA will allow for each station to send and receive at approximately 1Gbps without stepping on eachother so much that you have degraded performance.

However, it really depends on your situation to say what should or shouldn’t be setup. I don’t know your bandwidth requirements, so I can’t really say. The nice thing about ethernet is that it on switched networks (which is what you’ll be using for gigabit), the. Ethernet kind of naturally defaults to the shortest path, unless you’re doing something foolish with it (like intentionally messing with STP to push traffic in a particular direction). The issue with that is that ethernet doesn’t really scale beyond a few thousand nodes. Not an issue for even a fairly large LAN, but that’s the reason we don’t use it for internet (wan side) traffic routing. But now I’m off topic.

Given the naturally shortest-path behavior of ethernet, of you have a switch in your office and you only really use your NAS from your office PC, you’ll have a full speed experience. If nothing else needs high-speed access to the NAS, you’ll be fine.

Apart from the NAS or any other LAN resources, the network should be sufficient to fully saturate your internet connection. So the average WiFi speeds should be targeted towards something faster than your internet link (again, half duplex factors in here). I don’t know your internet speed so I’m not going to even guess what the numbers should be, but I personally aim for double my internet speed for maximum throughput on my WiFi as much as I can. The closer you can get to doubling your internet speed here, the better. Anything more than that will likely be wasted.

There’s a ton to say about WiFi and performance optimization, but I’ll leave it alone unless you ask about it further.

Good luck.

It can be faster, it really depends on whether you have a clear-ish channel for the mesh, which is why I would recommend something on the higher end, hopefully with a dedicated radio for mesh, so it can be on a different channel with (hopefully) less interference.

If the mesh radio is shared with client access, or if it’s on a busy channel, it may be much, much slower than some options.