LTS

Today is the wife's birthday, and as I usually do, I take the day off and we go where she wants.. Today's morning was a hike at Harriet Hollister park and then a stop at Irish Mafia. We usually turn these things into multi-day events. It's fun.

This is dark right now.

From a consumer router perspective, I've had incredible performance from TP-Link. The Archer AC1900 AC2600, AC3150 should work well. It depends a lot on how much space you want to cover and the composition of your walls, etc. You can invest in a router that allows application prioritization (QoS). It's port only, but the concept is that it will throttle back other traffic being allowed out the port so that your prioritized application is not hindered. If you want to prioritize by device you'd need to spend a bit more than that. I haven't used consumer routers in a few years.. my Archer C9 was my last one. It was solid in terms of coverage area and CPU/RAM for handling the traffic flows. I currently show 34 connected devices in my house. So, I need something a bit beefier. ? It's often used improperly, that's for sure.

Maybe they should put more money into their employees and less paying for emu trainers.

Meh. This has no bearing on trading Ristolainen. There's no way the organization is all in on making the playoffs this year anyway. They are setting up for next year. You don't have to like it, but with where Toronto, Boston, and Tampa currently sit, the mountain they need to overcome is pretty high. Get him healthy, the season is long.

Speed tests are nothing more than a representation of throughput between two points on a network for a specific period of time. However, the Internet is a big place and it changes constantly. The Internet does not obey QoS tags. But yes, a network provider can prioritize certain locations, etc. So, a speed test can be influenced by many factors. Your catvideo reference is a good one. You may have 1G service, but the other end of the network may throttle your connection, so, you can get mad that you are not getting 1G of throughput but it's really that the other end isn't sending that fast. It's like talking to someone who speaks very slow. You can't make the conversation go faster, despite how fast your brain can process information. I appreciate their attempt to over-simplify things for the common consumer, but that information is 100% not accurate. The problem with saying that is that someone is going to try and test it. Most consumer routers can't even handle 94 different traffic flows, regardless of the bandwidth utilization. On top of that, you have to account for the additional overhead on packets generated by 94 different traffic flows which reduces the amount of throughput. Then there's latency, packet loss, etc. to account for it all. Sigh...

Sigh. I work in the business (not for Spectrum) and I'm well aware of what goes on and how it all works. A "speed test" is a joke in and of itself. First, it doesn't even measure "speed" it measures throughput. Second, throughput varies by destination. The only test that matters is the throughput you get on a particular service flow. Having 100M of throughput doesn't make anything faster unless you have a single flow of 100M open to a destination, and then it reduces the time it takes to transfer the data overall, but it all moves at the same speed. And regardless of what anyone says and complains about, all providers offer "Up to X..." and anything you get is "up to" so, they are not lying. If you are getting better performance from another provider, then that's awesome. Use them, be happy with it. I have had Spectrum for 20 years (TWC, etc.) and the only times I've had problems were when there was an equipment issue down the street that caused signal levels to drop. Every service provider faces a point where they enhance infrastructure or play the contention game. Every, single, one. Because no one (consumer) will pay for the level of service required to avoid them. Right, you can't truly offer 1G because of overhead on the line. Spectrum offers 940Mbps downstream as well. We offer 1G GPON service in our customer base as well. It's not truly 1G of course. Your BW estimations for services are accurate. Netflix quotes you needing 25Mbps per 4k stream. YouTube is likely using less compression (they also have a hell of an infrastructure). Even if you have 1G of throughput and you want to stream, those throughput speeds are based on optimal packets. The fact is that the interfaces can only handle so many packets and if you are sending smaller packets through the port it will get congested. In addition,, network devices have certain constraints. Fiber remains far more efficient than HFC and Ethernet in terms of packet handling, etc. This is a good reference i found on a quick Google search.. I've read numerous articles, information such as these. https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/security-center/network-performance-metrics.html

Here's what I am taking away from that game. First, a few defensive breakdowns led to easy goals that are not to be blamed on the goaltender. I'd put two on Johansson and none on Hutton. Second, the defense was loose, in favor of pushing the puck up the ice. The first two periods were very much attack, attack, and then get your arse back to defend. The 3rd period was almost none of that. It was almost the perfect way to demonstrate that "hey, if you stop doing what you did in the first two, even a bunch of AHLers can beat you". That's a solid lesson. It'd be even better if it was orchestrated. Before 3rd - Coaching: "Okay, boys, let's go 1-2-2 the 3rd period and see how that looks." After Game: - Players "Coach, I think we need the 2-1-2 from now on." Coach thinks.. they get it. ? Overall, I think the Sabres played very loose and were taking chances and I think they were rewarded for it. Pittsburgh adjusted and the Sabres kept pushing some of those chances but also let off on some of the pressure they had as well. I'm not concerned. Not in the least. I was happy to watch hockey again.

Audio levels are up.. wish the video quality was better...

Audio is very quiet.confirmed on my iPad and fire stick.

They playing at Penn State? IN the arena Pegula built? I think they do this every year now don't they?

I loved him in Knight Rider.

You can't start a guy who isn't on the roster. So every GM has some control over it. It does happen. But if it is, it means that the coach and GM are not on the same page and that's a bad thing.

13... period. Strangely enough, I wore it and my wife wore it in high school (we did not know each other). My son wears it, and didn't even know that either of his parents wore it until he picked it himself. My daughter wears it, but she knew both of us had worn it and saw her brother wearing it. 13... it's not as popular in hockey as it could be. But that's my number, and that's that. ?

Elite? No. There are not many Elite goaltenders. There are good goaltenders who have great seasons, there are many goaltenders who have good seasons and are starters but not necessarily the guy who steals the show night in and night out. Ullmark can be a very good goalie. Now that the Sabres have rid themselves of their old goalie coach I would expect to see a notable improvement in both goaltenders. Lots of people on here keep dismissing the impact the goalie coach has. They are ignoring that Hutton's game changed over the last year and began to look like Lehner and Johnson from the year before. They ignore that Lehner left and his game stopped looking like the prior year with the Sabres. There will be an improvement.

For what it's worth, the NHL.TV package is useless to me, because in Rochester I cannot watch the games live. Some perspective... There are many reasons why those company continue to raise their prices. First, it's those who create the content who demand a higher price. If the NHL demands top dollar for its product, then those who wish to license it have to find a way to recoup their money. They are not a public service. Once they figure that out, they also need to pay their employees, who, like you and many others, want a cost of living increase every year. So, if they don't raise their prices, how do they pay them? Greed is what causes this to happen, but in the absence of that greed the free-loading society would have no content to watch because it would not be worth anyone's time to put in the effort to create a broadcast. In addition, the league would not get its money, the players in turn would not get theirs. If they wanted it more money, the only revenue streams would be ticket prices. If the ticket prices were too high no one would attend games, then there'd be operating losses at the arena. If there is no arena, there is no place to play. This vacuum you seem to believe exists regarding economics does not exist. Now, perhaps you'll fall back to the next argument. It's the people at the top who make too much money that are the problem. They should take less money. Yes, well, they COULD take less money, but they are not required to take less money. But enough, I could go on. Software companies do fight piracy, just not through obnoxious DRM. They've turned to other measures of control. In addition, they project piracy costs into their budgets, so rather than hiring more staff, they are pay existing staff less, hire less staff, force them to crunch, etc. In addition, the growing rise of in-game currency, season passes, etc. are all methods by which companies fight the piracy issue. The music industry adapted to the streaming model in an attempt to fight piracy. Unfortunately the streaming model reduces income for artists overall. It certainly allows more artists to be discovered. Is it any surprise that concert ticket prices have steadily risen over the past 20 years as the mp3 piracy crazy and then streaming music services quickly came into existence? When companies change how they do business to deal with piracy, it usually happens at the expense of the consumer. It's not as simple as you want to make it out to be.

Just spent the weekend in Canada for a youth hockey tournament, 6 games in 3 days. I'm ready for more hockey.

I'm not going to quote. But threads like this will undoubtedly have a lot of interesting takes on what the problems are and where they lie. First, you never need a gig. Very few people do. It's marketing. Second, you are unlikely to have synchronous service, so you may get a Gig for things you download, but you probably don't have the same sending upstream. Third, all Internet service providers operate on contention ratios. This is why all their advertisements say "up to". If you don't operate on a contention ratio, you have dedicated service and it's extremely expensive. Fourth, the contention ratio varies by provider, by area, etc. Contention ratio is the number of subscribers who share an upstream port on the network path. If the ratio is 10:1 then 10 people connect into a single upstream port. Your traffic is aggregated at that port. The odds are extremely good that port is also 1Gbps. So, if the aggregated data usage of those 10 people is above 1Gbps, there will be network degradation. The number of devices you have connected to your network will impact your network performance, especially if they are all on at the same time and doing different things. In addition, if you use the router that your ISP provides it is usually not rated to handle that many devices. As such, the RAM/CPU on the device gets overrun and its ability to process network packets is hindered. If you are connecting to the device via the integrated WiFi, the problems get even more complex and yes, if you are using your ISP's integrated wireless you are also doing yourself a major disservice. So, Spectrum is not lying about their speeds. You are getting "up to" whatever you pay for. In addition, gaming and streaming traffic do not mix on networks. Gaming is comprised of a lot of small data packets. Streaming uses a lot more data in a single packet. Gaming data needs to be transferred rapid fire to a server and data needs to return just as fast. Latency naturally plays into that, but latency can be impacted by a great many factors, not the least of which are the other devices on your network. It's even worse if you use wireless as only WiFi 6 truly handles disparate network packet streams without significant WiFi impact. It's also worth noting that if you have an older wireless device, say one that only uses 802.11g. When it connects to your WiFi it will force the WiFi to automatically drop to 54mbps maximum throughput for all devices that are going through the WiFi network. Another reason to invest in newer devices and spend a few hundred on an upscale router. I can go on... ?

Very possible. Most of my statements were made in generality, not specifically for this instance.

Like most systems, when someone "adds to their cart" the system will take those items out of inventory for a set period of time. When you had to create an account and the information didn't carry over they were likely stuck in the old cart waiting to be bought. When that didn't happen after a set period of time they were returned to the inventory. Now imagine this happening with multiple people. This is a common problem in any system that sells "seats" or similar inventory. That said, overall, the prices will vary. If the system detects more views happening for a game it will raise the prices. This is your classic ML/AI. It's job is to run algorithmic tests to see if it can't maximize the selling price of every game. Increased views mean increased interest so raise the price. See if someone bites. It likely gets even more complicated if you are logged into the site or if it can read certain ad-tracking cookies, etc. The depth of this can go one for awhile. By the way, sometimes it works in reverse. I was once offered a "one-time"discount by a site on something i had visited a few times in the past few weeks. It decided to see if it could entice me to buy since i was clearly not buying at the posted price. It worked.

What i noticed about Cozens is that he uses his size when he gets into traffic. He'll expand his frame out and rather than striding will begin using his hips to swivel while keeping his skates on the ice. With his legs further apart and his arms opened up he uses his size to keep the puck away from defenders. Thompson does not use his size as well as Cozens. Thompson is big but he plays very vertical. He can shield people off but he's easy to knock around. Cozens ability to widen up and then pull up vertical was very noticeable in comparison. It's what a top level player should be doing.

Good lord, I would quit paying attention to the Sabres if they made that deal. Laine is worth Risto.. and that's it. Nothing more. And that's if you even want Laine. Too many question marks...

If no one wants to take over my team I will manage it. Just so slammed with work/life that I can't promise full attention.

The pint glasses would be cool. But I could probably buy them off FB Marketplace for less than the cost of season tickets. ?