I still sell Dialup, yes actively sell it. We don't have many dialup customers but in rural Michigan even Starlink can be a problem to use, if it is even available to you..

Average speed on the crappy (aka rotting) lines here tops out around 32K. Too many line-share's, bridge taps, and outdated Remote Terminals (Teleco lingo for Multiplexing, Wire tap boards, and Local area control systems).

Unfortunately because of the way the system is set up it only works in our state, and even then if you happen to dial a 'local long distance' number (i e: next town over) to connect it won't. It has to be one of the Local numbers. Again because of the primary telephone company and how they handle the number routing.

Az

I forgot to add, we have a (hard) copy of each and every paper we have ever published. Can these new all electronic news sites and advertising sites say that?

We know who advertised with us in 1905, and how much they paid for that ad, what they advertised and for how much because we still have the hard-copy. We know who advertised with us last month. We have the hard copy and the digital copy.

Local store wants to have a Nostalgia day? No problem we can pull up the old ads and help them build it. Can these new sites do that? Most don't keep more than 3 years of history, if that.

Sorry to disappoint. The internet is only part of the equation. What is killing (not killed, yet) the newspaper industry is a combination of rising costs (Paper, Ink, Replacement parts, Delivery fees, staff wages) and loss of ad revenue (which is were the internet comes in).

I work for a small-town newspaper. We cover 3 1/2 Counties. Circulation is over 50k for a daily paper. We have been there since the late 1880's. We continue to put our news. In the early 1900's we averaged about 40 pages a day. Now we are down to 16 (always based on 4 pages). Back in the early 1900's we averaged about $0.5052 (in 2025 money) per page gross profit. Now, about $0.0032 per page. Yes, we track it down to that level and have since 1905.

The are multiple reasons:

- First is the cost of paper. In the 1900's paper was cheap, and I do mean cheap. A roll of paper was maybe $100 (again in 2025 dollars) and now they are upwards of over $500 per roll (thanks Trump, we can't buy US paper, it isn't made. We tried.) We need 2 rolls per day.

- Second is the cost of the aluminum plates we need, daily, to print the paper. We buy them by the Ton (think about a 1/2 height pallet worth) every 3 months. That's over $5000 for something we use once then thrown away. (local recycling company likes us and helps cut our overall cost of those plates down)

- Third is the cost of ink. We buy in bulk 3 times a year. The heavily concentrated ink run us about $20K per year. In the early 1900's that same ink for the larger run was around $500 per year in 2025 dollars. We did use less color back then.

- Fourth is the cost of staff. We have less than 50 employees now but the average wage is at about $18/hr. In the late 1900's the average wage was $12/hr and the early 1900's it was closer to $5/hour, again adjusted to 2025 dollars. 5 years ago we had 3 people in "Customer Service" our front line at the office. They took calls, handles Circulation, Classifieds, and routed things to reporters and Advertising staff. Now we have 1, which happens to be vacant at the moment. We put out notices we are hiring. 5 years ago we had over 100 applicants for the positions, so far after a month, we have had 3. Two of them wanted way more money than we can afford to pay, and the 3rd.. while they may get hired they are not going to last. Stereotypical Millennium attitude just isn't a good fit for Customer Service.

- Fifth is cost of hardware to even make the paper. Our press was put in place in 1968. It still runs. It still puts out very good quality papers, but it is 50+ years old. Parts are hard to find. We were lucky and were able to buy a duplicate press in 2000 from a newspaper that was going out of business. We have plenty of spare parts, at the moment. A replacement press? That is upwards of $20 million and at least a year before it can be installed. We use Intel Macs for most of our systems and will be using them until they fail. We can't afford to replace desktop machines whenever the OS and hardware manufacturers say we have to. We even have a test program to see if we can migrate most of our hardware to Linux and keep using the hardware even longer. $200-500 per machine (used/refurbished) is too much if we have to replace them every 3 years. We still have a couple of old WindowsXP machines, and several Mac OS9 machines around for specialized hardware controls. Replacing those? Won't happen as the hardware they control would also have to be replaced at costs upwards of $500,000 each. Next is the software need (not want, NEED) runs us over $500/month. We don't get a choice, there isn't a viable alternative to them, We have had to get creative in how we use the software by sharing a single machine, remotely, so that 4-5 people use a single copy of the software. Per the ToS and EULAs we are using the software legally. (IP is important to us) Just means time-sharing a single machine. Oh yes, and it can't be upgraded any further since at least one of the programs no longer is being supported and it's replacement doesn't work at all on any hardware we have. Windows 11 only with, currently, cutting edge hardware just to do a simple layout. The older software we use runs on Windows Vista through 10, or Mac OS 10.11.5 though 10.11.9. We use the Mac version on 10.11.9 and have that machine imaged and duplicated in storage in case of hardware failure. Just more cost, but cheaper than buying the subscription-only newer version and having to replace hardware every 2-3 years because they say we have to.

- Sixth is loss of Advertising revenue. This is the one we all are debating in this thread. The local stores are now running their own online advertising, and really upsetting the local people (we get calls daily). for example the local supermarket stopped all print advertising back in March. They went to digital only delivery through their own (horrendous) app. We lost over 100 subscribers (according to their statements at cancellation) for that one alone. This is the big one. Advertising is where a paper makes its operating costs. Without decent advertising the paper has to cut something. We cut non-reporter staff at first, then pages, and now have had to cut reporters (happily through attrition). We have had to expand into digital marketing and are learning fast about the different platforms and their ins, outs, and quirks. None are great but they all have a place.

- Seventh, and the last major issue is Postage. We deliver through the USPS (cheaper than paper route delivery people) and they keep increasing the costs to us, now twice a year. On July 7th, 2025 that overall price for our daily deliver went up $65 per day. That is after going up nearly $100 in January, $75 last July, and nearly $80 in January 2024. On top of that delivery times have gotten longer. We deliver DIRECTLY to the USPS offices in our area for local distribution and sometimes our customers don't get it until the following day, Those that are out of our area are seeing 2 to 3 days to get a daily paper. One person across the country from us has told us they are seeing a 4 day delay on getting their paper. We do NOT get any sort of credit or refund for missed delivery and end up have to spend MORE sending a paper, first class, to the customer, and extending their subscription by a day or two to keep them from cancelling.

It boils down to, of you want local news, then you need to get the local stores, even those owned by some big corporation, to advertise locally. Without that the paper has to cut something. First it will be staff, then pages, then quality. We had a copy editor. They retired, and now we let the word processors check the spelling and grammar. They do so poorly. Similar can be said for the modern LLM systems (they are NOT AI). They are not ready for main stream.

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.