I’m genuinely having trouble thinking of a consumer product where the most widely sold brand or version is the “best” (highest quality, most durable, most features, best flavor, or whatever meteoric would be used).

I can think of a number of products where getting the “best” is a case of steep diminishing returns compared to the increasing price, and for the purposes of the “average” person the “best” product isn’t any better for them than the mainstream one. The “best” versions of some products are only better for those with the skills to make use of them or the need for the “best” quality or features.

A notebook at home would suffice, but it’s not great for the same reason as word based passwords.

I’m aware. I’ve explained it elsewhere, but having dealt with irrationally tech adverse older people myself, I’ve learned sometimes decent solutions they’ll actually use are better than great ones they’ll resist. I’ve found that any new software, like a password manager, no matter how user friendly and logical is treated with suspicion and disdain.

While being aware that leaking passwords and reusing them is a major risk, I was just asking about the construction of the password as it relates to being attacked directly.

But also, no one wants to try to remember a hundred different unique passwords so it’s also a good idea to use a password manager.

Absolutely. I recommended the notebook approach only because I think people of a certain mindset would be more open to it than a password manager, even if it isn’t as elegant of a solution. At the end of the day it still diversifies passwords. I’m vividly picturing my mom throwing a fit any time a doctor or other office wants her to fill out a form on a tablet instead of paper.

I’m going to be real. I was part way through an explanation before I deleted it. What you are dealing with sounds like a situation where you simply won’t win by using logic. To continue to labor under the presumption that a good and logical reasoning will have an effect is just going to stress you out and achieve nothing.

Google password because I recommended against it being a word.

IT nerds help me out here, but I’ve been under the impression that the best defense against brute force attacks is a very long password, and the idea of sprinkling in special characters or numbers is outdated. Something like “iwenttothestoreandboughtabirthdaycake” is a more secure password than “$6jds_*WghP6”.

edit: Also the mantra to never write down any passwords is more of a workplace piece of advice. I personally think, and this would probably be helpful for older people, that writing down passwords in a notebook which is kept secure in their home is pretty safe. Short of a home invasion, that notebook is safe, and having it can encourage them to diversify their passwords on different accounts. So, if you are going to keep at the issue, taking an angle of using something they are more comfortable with like a paper notebook is going to be accepted more easily than trying to sell them on a password manager or something.

‘History That Doesn’t Suck’ by Prof. Greg Jackson. It is a history of the U.S., told in a flowing narrative type format that’s easy to listen to. I like it because it counteracts my biggest peeve in the presentation of history where it is taught as discreet chunks that are seemingly disconnected. In this podcast, it follows the flow of historical figures and events as they naturally lead to new things rather than talking about each section in a vacuum.

‘HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast’/‘Strange Studies of Strange Stories’. A podcast with two hosts and normally a guest reader. The hosts talk about the relevant real life history of the story, as well as talking about the story itself, edited in between a reading of some or all of the story (depending on story length). It gives a good overview of the works and is tightly edited so that the host banter never rambles off topic. The podcast changed names when they ran out of HPL stories and fully branched out into other authors.

I dunno, my daily mix is my daily mix.

in the plans should already be a plan

“Should” is the worst word in the English language.

When a storm comes through and there are widespread disruptions, it is common to send cars along routes to assess the condition of each pole and its equipment. Damaged equipment or lines is easily visible. In a fairly short amount of time the damage can all be assessed and waiting line crews can get to work quickly fixing equipment.

With underground infrastructure, it takes longer to pinpoint exactly what’s and fix it.

People seriously underestimate how disruptive underground work is. Imagine instead of a neighborhood with lawns a dense urban area full of concrete, asphalt, and plumbing and how long it would take to retrofit overhead power infrastructure to underground. People would be furious.

but they all seem to be countered with “but that’s expensive”

And time consuming and more difficult to assess, maintain, modify, and install. While increasing the underground footprint which makes it more difficult for other underground utilities and construction.

Well there are many compelling reasons

And when the reasons are good enough the lines go underground. Otherwise yes the cheap and easy way is better as the baseline, because paying ~10x more and taking much longer to install a system that is harder to work with for no good reason is stupid.

It can be done, but the people paying for it need a compelling reason. Just saying “It’s kind of primitive ya know.” isn’t enough.

In a dense urban environment you are wanting retrofitted lines run through terrain already full of concrete, water lines, and other urban features. That would take a lot of coordination in design and still likely miss things (which means more time and money on redesigns). It also means a long installation time which means extended disruption to the area.

These sorts of underground lines are easier to run in totally fresh new construction, but then again, it runs into servicing issues and extra expense.

is expensive to fix after a storm

Assessing and fixing underground lines is much harder, more expensive, and disruptive.

Maintenance, modification, assessment, and initial installation are all more difficult. And yes that means more expensive, and yes the cost difference is significant. It is more resource and personnel intense to work underground lines than overhead.

When it comes to damage from weather, while underground lines can be slightly more resilient they are much, much more of a pain to assess and and fix. A good line crew can put up a new pole in about an hour. It takes a lot longer to run underground digging equipment.

In some places underground lines are run, of course, because for various reasons the associated downsides are deemed worth it. However when you’re looking at a whole infrastructure, you want easy to service, fast to install, and cost efficient.

Which is a solution for a limited area where the extra cost and longer install time might be deemed worthwhile, but when you want to run miles upon miles of lines then it is less feasible.

As a consultant…

Watching overpaid engineers not understand basic concepts or struggle to do things like check voltage with a multimeter.

Watching horribly sloppy safety procedures.

Interacting with safety auditors who don’t know how their own equipment works and insist on useless safety measures or fail to insist on proper ones.

Being blamed for a problem outside my control even after identifying exactly where the problem is coming from and who they need to call to fix it. (Then having to repeatedly explain this to increasingly higher levels of management who are increasingly detached from the details.)

No not at all. Power posters keep communities alive.

PugJesus and The_Picard_Maneuver have already been named. The former basically single handedly keeping some history communities alive and the latter a lot of meme and Star Trek content.

For specific communities, @BallShapedMan@lemmy.world is a mainstay on !artshare@lemmy.world

@Agent_Karyo@piefed.world posts a lot of gaming content.

@MimicJar@lemmy.world is basically keeping !thesimpsons@lemmy.world in the feed signelhandedly.

When I was in elementary school one of my classrooms had Stratego among the board games meant for bad weather days or waiting after school.

I had previously played Stratego and liked it, but every single other kid in this classroom read that the ‘Spy’ piece could kill the ‘General’ (the most powerful) piece and concluded that the ‘Spy’ could therefore kill any piece on the board. I was shouted down by everyone for pointing out the actual wording of the rules and that a ‘Spy’ is called that because it’s obviously supposed to be a sneaky piece.

Nobody agreed and just played the game with the ‘Spy’ as a rampaging super piece killing everything. That was pretty miserable.

Yes.

This is true that crossposting is messy, but I think it is the best current solution. Crossposting means it is more likely to show up on the feed of somebody only subscribed to one of the communities, which might remind them that the community exists. Crossposting also means that when somebody stumbles upon a community it at least has the appearance of a pulse.