On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 12:05:11 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:32 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:09:23 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 11:06 PM, wrote:
Snip


When the future was already happening around them they still did
nothing. Yes, that is stupid. Even WalMart was late to the e-commerce
game and recently invested in (bought?) jet.com so they can catch up.
Check out the JC Penney web site to see a useless disaster. Sears is
just a link for items sold by others.

JCPenney has been a zombie for a decade or more. They were losing
money because people figured out that you don't buy anything there at
full price - wait for the sale. A new CEO decided to change that, so
get rid of all the sales. ...and the customers, too.


Strange how that did not work for JCP but works for BB&B. We never buy
anything at BB&B with out a 20% off coupon.

Ditto. The difference is that BBY paces customers with the coupons.
Also, there are *big* limitations on those coupons. Look at the
exclusions, sometime.



I get BB&B 20% coupons every day through e-mail and the only limitation
I have run into is that the coupon is good for one item per coupon, most
of the time.

We only get hem once a month or so, perhaps beause they usually go
unused,

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 11:46:29 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:37 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:13:21 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 9:44 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 1/6/2017 7:33 PM, wrote:

From past experience, B&D could be the death knell for Craftsman. The
only thing B&D does well is marketing.


According to the news they paid $900million for it


And while that might sound like a lot, I think 3 or 4 quarterly losses
out of the past 20 quarterly losses would eat that 900 million up.

Every town does not need multiple stores, get rid of the overages.
I'm sure Sears will still profit from Craftsman sales and probably not
as much but a store that is loosing money tends to stay that way and
mostly because of over saturation. I go to stores farther away as the
same brand that are closer stores very often.

Sears certainly isn't over-saturated in Atlanta. I think there are
only seven stores in the entire metro area (none in this area). Hell,
there are three HomeDepots and two Lowes within 15 miles of me. The
Lowes are all right across the street from the HDs, too. Oh, there
are two HFs in the same area. ;-)


It all depends on the location and the competition if you are over
saturated. IIRC in the Houston are there are only 5 large Sears stores
left. IMHO that is too many as the 3 closest to me are pretty much
empty every time I go in.

I count nine.

http://www.sears.com/stores.html

BUT In Houston there are also many like alternatives. Macy's, JCP and
none seem to be doing enough business to remain open. So that sector in
the Houston is overly saturated. Not to mention that there are probably
thousands of strip centers in the Houston metro area that offer almost
the same thing as the department stores like Sears.

Atlanta isn't exactly Frost Bite Falls. Sears is mostly empty because
they have nothing that the public wants at the prices they're
charging. Stick a fork in them.

On 1/7/2017 5:55 PM, wrote:

There may be a fix. ;~)
When we moved into the home we had build 6 years ago we switched to
Uverse TV, phone and internet.
Service was so unreliable that many on our block dropped Uverse when it
went out for the 3rd time for 4 straight days. We dropped the TV and
eventually the phone. The Uverse DVR does not work like most DVR's,
when the service goes down you loose use of recordings in addition to
the internet and phone.

The Comcast DVR I had for the short time I was in an appartment was
the same.

Anyway I had a problem with our internet service through Uverse and the
repair guy come out to fix their problem. I mentioned that the TV often
stopped and he said it was the box on the outside of out house that was
the problem but they would not repair that. The box was only 5 years
old at the time. He did say that I could have the box replaced for free
if I simply upgraded my internet speed to above 24 gig IIRC. The faster
speeds required the latest versions of the "box". He indicated that I
could upgrade the speed for a month and change back to my previous
speed. He stressed that your contract dies not dictate the speed only
that you continue service. I was out of contract anyway but it was good
to know.

All of our hardware is new. They just installed the fiber a couple of
years ago and just allowed us to connect in '16. All of our hardware
has been replaced (some of it, twice) since then, too.



I did upgrade my speed to what they now call Fiber at 300 gig and the
box was replaced at no extra charge. Very fast and no more TV stopping
for a few seconds.
Unfortunately for us the internet being 20 times faster than our
previous speed is pretty much wasted unless checking my internet speed
on a speed test. If we download a TV show through DirecTV it takes a
long time still. You still have to wait a little while so that it
does not buffer. An On Demand movie might be faster.

Down loading large software updates or programs happens in a snap
however. And for a whole my up load was 300gig also they have throttled
that back to about 75. I don't see the difference between 300 and 75.
It is like trying to distinguish the difference between 1 second and a
quarter second.


Any way........ If you can get the newer box your hesitation may stop.

They've been in the house at least six times in the eight months, or
so, that we've had the service. Most of the problems didn't relate to
the Internet but everything was new and has been replaced at least
once.

Well Uverse was never great for us and one of the reasons we dumped it.
From what I understand Uverse is on the chopping block since ATT
acquired DirecTV.

My TV hesitation was with streaming through the internet and through my
DirecTV DVR. The new box cured the problem. I might add that the fiber
comes up to my house but was not being used to it's full potential until
the faster internet speeds were offered with the new boxes.

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 12:13:22 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:44 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:27:34 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 11:21 PM, wrote:
On 06 Jan 2017 03:41:11 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote in
:


What value? Liability for rent I can see but the era of the mall is
over.

Going back some years we used to go to the mall a couple of times a
month to shop, maybe have lunch or at least a snack. I bet it has
been 3 years since I set foot in a mall, but less than a week since I
made a purchase on line. Sales on line are up 17% last year according
to NBC news.

Amazon also lets me place orders in my underwear. Macy's frowns upon
it.

Malls are now all about the shallow side of the human: cell phones,
clothes, etc. The stores that capture and captivate your attention are
rare. There used to be a Radioshack in every mall (you've got questions,
we've got cell phones!), as well as a KB Toys. Some still have
bookstores, but even they are going to standalone stores.

In Houston we still have a few malls that you would dare step foot into
but the enclosed shopping concept is loosing favor to the large strip
centers. The problem with malls is that you don't know where to park
and you cannot walk directly into the store you want to go to. A mall
is like going to Ikea.

Again, I think the difference is weather. In the North, mega-malls
are still popular because one can get out and walk in the Winter
without freezing. In the South, this isn't a problem even in the
Summer.

You think? LOL In the south we do not relish going from from store in
100 degree heat. I really don't like to park anywhere except in front
of the store I want to go into.

I've lived both places. I'd *much* rather 100F than -30F. There is a
reason I don't live in Vermont anymore. Well, there are a lot of
reasons but that's on the list. ;-)

I do see the mall as being a benefit when there is snow on the ground.
FWIW it was 19 degrees here this morning, while a norm for you northern
folks, you probably were not at 84 degrees earlier in the week or
expecting to be back near 80 on Wednesday. That is about a 120 degree
temp swing in a week.

That wasn't even rare in Vermont, though startin 50F colder. ;-)
I remember a 100F swing, one year.

It was cold here, too, and a fair amount of ice. It was mostly gone
(roads clear) by noon. I doubt that out heat pump will keep up
tonight.

Don't understand your Ikea reference. We have a store but parking is
trivial. It's all in the basement levels of the store (two levels of
parking and two of store). We've only been there twice in the five
years we've been here (don't like driving on the streets in large
cities) but we just happened to be there a couple of weeks ago.

Ikwa is not designed for the customer to walk in, go straight to what he
wants, and straight to the registers. Ikea's here pretty much force you
to walk through the whole store, a very convoluted path to get out.

Ah, right. The grand tour. We count steps, so that's not all bad.
;-)

On 1/7/2017 6:47 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 11:38:40 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:54 AM, John McCoy wrote:
Jack wrote in news
I once bought a lathe chuck from Amazon, when it came, it was in a
Harbor Freight box and had the Harbor Freight number on it. I stuck
the number in at HF site and up popped the exact same item for 30%
less. Made me chuckle as it was still cheap, but smart dude figured
out to list the item on Amazon and buy them at HF.

This happens on Ebay all the time - people buy HF stuff and
sell it at a higher price. Apparently there's a big enough
market of people who've never been in a HF store or seen one
of their advertisements to make it profitable.

John



Precisely and some people will pay extra just to avoid the HF store
smell.. ;~)

Nah, once they open the box their house will have the same smell.


What do a pizza delivery man and a gynecologist have in common?
/
/
/
/
They both have something that smells good but they can't eat it.

On 1/7/2017 6:05 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 11:46:29 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:37 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:13:21 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 9:44 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 1/6/2017 7:33 PM, wrote:

From past experience, B&D could be the death knell for Craftsman. The
only thing B&D does well is marketing.


According to the news they paid $900million for it


And while that might sound like a lot, I think 3 or 4 quarterly losses
out of the past 20 quarterly losses would eat that 900 million up.

Every town does not need multiple stores, get rid of the overages.
I'm sure Sears will still profit from Craftsman sales and probably not
as much but a store that is loosing money tends to stay that way and
mostly because of over saturation. I go to stores farther away as the
same brand that are closer stores very often.

Sears certainly isn't over-saturated in Atlanta. I think there are
only seven stores in the entire metro area (none in this area). Hell,
there are three HomeDepots and two Lowes within 15 miles of me. The
Lowes are all right across the street from the HDs, too. Oh, there
are two HFs in the same area. ;-)


It all depends on the location and the competition if you are over
saturated. IIRC in the Houston are there are only 5 large Sears stores
left. IMHO that is too many as the 3 closest to me are pretty much
empty every time I go in.

I count nine.

I took a wild guess for Houston, actual regular stores 6. The three
stores closest to me still stock a wide variety of stuff similar to what
they did 40 years ago. I meant empty of customers, above.

On 1/7/2017 6:53 PM, Leon wrote:



An attorney friend mentioned to me, about 18 years ago, that FAX was the
only form of electronic document transfer that was recognized as
acceptable in the American Law system.



That was true but there are ways of digital signing now.
https://www.docusign.com/learn/esign-act-ueta

On 1/7/2017 6:13 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 12:13:22 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:44 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:27:34 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 11:21 PM, wrote:
On 06 Jan 2017 03:41:11 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote in
:


What value? Liability for rent I can see but the era of the mall is
over.

Going back some years we used to go to the mall a couple of times a
month to shop, maybe have lunch or at least a snack. I bet it has
been 3 years since I set foot in a mall, but less than a week since I
made a purchase on line. Sales on line are up 17% last year according
to NBC news.

Amazon also lets me place orders in my underwear. Macy's frowns upon
it.

Malls are now all about the shallow side of the human: cell phones,
clothes, etc. The stores that capture and captivate your attention are
rare. There used to be a Radioshack in every mall (you've got questions,
we've got cell phones!), as well as a KB Toys. Some still have
bookstores, but even they are going to standalone stores.

In Houston we still have a few malls that you would dare step foot into
but the enclosed shopping concept is loosing favor to the large strip
centers. The problem with malls is that you don't know where to park
and you cannot walk directly into the store you want to go to. A mall
is like going to Ikea.

Again, I think the difference is weather. In the North, mega-malls
are still popular because one can get out and walk in the Winter
without freezing. In the South, this isn't a problem even in the
Summer.

You think? LOL In the south we do not relish going from from store in
100 degree heat. I really don't like to park anywhere except in front
of the store I want to go into.

I've lived both places. I'd *much* rather 100F than -30F. There is a
reason I don't live in Vermont anymore. Well, there are a lot of
reasons but that's on the list. ;-)

Well 100 degrees is the outside temp. The inside the car temp can
approach 130 if it sits out in the sun very long, like when you park a
quarter mile from the mall entrance and then walk to the other end of
the mall. LOL -30 is pretty tough! Yellowstone was -37 this morning.

AND I do prefer to work in the heat vs. the cold but the soccer moms
that shop the stores panic in that heat.


I do see the mall as being a benefit when there is snow on the ground.
FWIW it was 19 degrees here this morning, while a norm for you northern
folks, you probably were not at 84 degrees earlier in the week or
expecting to be back near 80 on Wednesday. That is about a 120 degree
temp swing in a week.

That wasn't even rare in Vermont, though startin 50F colder. ;-)
I remember a 100F swing, one year.

It was cold here, too, and a fair amount of ice. It was mostly gone
(roads clear) by noon. I doubt that out heat pump will keep up
tonight.

LOL we had ice this morning. There was an inch of rain water in the
rain gauge. The float was on top of that and then froze to the 1" of
ice. Then it rained another 1/4" and froze so the orange gloat is
suspended in ice.



Don't understand your Ikea reference. We have a store but parking is
trivial. It's all in the basement levels of the store (two levels of
parking and two of store). We've only been there twice in the five
years we've been here (don't like driving on the streets in large
cities) but we just happened to be there a couple of weeks ago.

Ikwa is not designed for the customer to walk in, go straight to what he
wants, and straight to the registers. Ikea's here pretty much force you
to walk through the whole store, a very convoluted path to get out.

Ah, right. The grand tour. We count steps, so that's not all bad.
;-)

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:11:54 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 5:55 PM, wrote:

There may be a fix. ;~)
When we moved into the home we had build 6 years ago we switched to
Uverse TV, phone and internet.
Service was so unreliable that many on our block dropped Uverse when it
went out for the 3rd time for 4 straight days. We dropped the TV and
eventually the phone. The Uverse DVR does not work like most DVR's,
when the service goes down you loose use of recordings in addition to
the internet and phone.

The Comcast DVR I had for the short time I was in an appartment was
the same.

Anyway I had a problem with our internet service through Uverse and the
repair guy come out to fix their problem. I mentioned that the TV often
stopped and he said it was the box on the outside of out house that was
the problem but they would not repair that. The box was only 5 years
old at the time. He did say that I could have the box replaced for free
if I simply upgraded my internet speed to above 24 gig IIRC. The faster
speeds required the latest versions of the "box". He indicated that I
could upgrade the speed for a month and change back to my previous
speed. He stressed that your contract dies not dictate the speed only
that you continue service. I was out of contract anyway but it was good
to know.

All of our hardware is new. They just installed the fiber a couple of
years ago and just allowed us to connect in '16. All of our hardware
has been replaced (some of it, twice) since then, too.



I did upgrade my speed to what they now call Fiber at 300 gig and the
box was replaced at no extra charge. Very fast and no more TV stopping
for a few seconds.
Unfortunately for us the internet being 20 times faster than our
previous speed is pretty much wasted unless checking my internet speed
on a speed test. If we download a TV show through DirecTV it takes a
long time still. You still have to wait a little while so that it
does not buffer. An On Demand movie might be faster.

Down loading large software updates or programs happens in a snap
however. And for a whole my up load was 300gig also they have throttled
that back to about 75. I don't see the difference between 300 and 75.
It is like trying to distinguish the difference between 1 second and a
quarter second.


Any way........ If you can get the newer box your hesitation may stop.

They've been in the house at least six times in the eight months, or
so, that we've had the service. Most of the problems didn't relate to
the Internet but everything was new and has been replaced at least
once.

Well Uverse was never great for us and one of the reasons we dumped it.
From what I understand Uverse is on the chopping block since ATT
acquired DirecTV.

The only alternative is DSL and DirectTV. Been there. Won't go back.
It's *far* worse.

My TV hesitation was with streaming through the internet and through my
DirecTV DVR. The new box cured the problem. I might add that the fiber
comes up to my house but was not being used to it's full potential until
the faster internet speeds were offered with the new boxes.

Through the DVR? The Internet service doesn't touch the DVR, at least
in our setup, there is a separate router.

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 17:53:37 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 4:18 PM, John McCoy wrote:
Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in news:x9mdneNfKupBnuzFnZ2dnUU7-
:

LOL.... I remember about 20 years ago wondering why FAX was still being
used over e-mail. Only now is Fax falling to e-mail and PDF's.

Mostly because of Asians. Ideographic languages like Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean, with thousands of characters, don't
lend themselves to being typed into emails. So "hand written
then faxed" messages remained the norm there until quite recently.

John



An attorney friend mentioned to me, about 18 years ago, that FAX was the
only form of electronic document transfer that was recognized as
acceptable in the American Law system.

Exactly. PDF/Internet may be acceptable now but it wasn't five years
ago.

On 1/7/2017 6:17 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 1/7/2017 6:47 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 11:38:40 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:54 AM, John McCoy wrote:
Jack wrote in news
I once bought a lathe chuck from Amazon, when it came, it was in a
Harbor Freight box and had the Harbor Freight number on it. I stuck
the number in at HF site and up popped the exact same item for 30%
less. Made me chuckle as it was still cheap, but smart dude figured
out to list the item on Amazon and buy them at HF.

This happens on Ebay all the time - people buy HF stuff and
sell it at a higher price. Apparently there's a big enough
market of people who've never been in a HF store or seen one
of their advertisements to make it profitable.

John



Precisely and some people will pay extra just to avoid the HF store
smell.. ;~)

Nah, once they open the box their house will have the same smell.


What do a pizza delivery man and a gynecologist have in common?
/
/
/
/
They both have something that smells good but they can't eat it.


I'm betting sometimes they both smell the same "smell/odor" when the
pizza has anchovies. ;~0

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:26:34 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 6:13 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 12:13:22 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:44 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:27:34 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 11:21 PM, wrote:
On 06 Jan 2017 03:41:11 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote in
:


What value? Liability for rent I can see but the era of the mall is
over.

Going back some years we used to go to the mall a couple of times a
month to shop, maybe have lunch or at least a snack. I bet it has
been 3 years since I set foot in a mall, but less than a week since I
made a purchase on line. Sales on line are up 17% last year according
to NBC news.

Amazon also lets me place orders in my underwear. Macy's frowns upon
it.

Malls are now all about the shallow side of the human: cell phones,
clothes, etc. The stores that capture and captivate your attention are
rare. There used to be a Radioshack in every mall (you've got questions,
we've got cell phones!), as well as a KB Toys. Some still have
bookstores, but even they are going to standalone stores.

In Houston we still have a few malls that you would dare step foot into
but the enclosed shopping concept is loosing favor to the large strip
centers. The problem with malls is that you don't know where to park
and you cannot walk directly into the store you want to go to. A mall
is like going to Ikea.

Again, I think the difference is weather. In the North, mega-malls
are still popular because one can get out and walk in the Winter
without freezing. In the South, this isn't a problem even in the
Summer.

You think? LOL In the south we do not relish going from from store in
100 degree heat. I really don't like to park anywhere except in front
of the store I want to go into.

I've lived both places. I'd *much* rather 100F than -30F. There is a
reason I don't live in Vermont anymore. Well, there are a lot of
reasons but that's on the list. ;-)

Well 100 degrees is the outside temp. The inside the car temp can
approach 130 if it sits out in the sun very long, like when you park a
quarter mile from the mall entrance and then walk to the other end of
the mall. LOL -30 is pretty tough! Yellowstone was -37 this morning.

AND I do prefer to work in the heat vs. the cold but the soccer moms
that shop the stores panic in that heat.

They aren't so happy at -30, either. It's so gray in the Winter that
people have to go somewhere. It's usually the Mall or perhaps Wally
World.

I do see the mall as being a benefit when there is snow on the ground.
FWIW it was 19 degrees here this morning, while a norm for you northern
folks, you probably were not at 84 degrees earlier in the week or
expecting to be back near 80 on Wednesday. That is about a 120 degree
temp swing in a week.

That wasn't even rare in Vermont, though startin 50F colder. ;-)
I remember a 100F swing, one year.

It was cold here, too, and a fair amount of ice. It was mostly gone
(roads clear) by noon. I doubt that out heat pump will keep up
tonight.

LOL we had ice this morning. There was an inch of rain water in the
rain gauge. The float was on top of that and then froze to the 1" of
ice. Then it rained another 1/4" and froze so the orange gloat is
suspended in ice.

Fortunately, the rain had all but stopped before it got cold. We were
supposed to get a half-inch of ice but it ended up only a good
glazing. North of the city got 4" of snow, I understand.



Don't understand your Ikea reference. We have a store but parking is
trivial. It's all in the basement levels of the store (two levels of
parking and two of store). We've only been there twice in the five
years we've been here (don't like driving on the streets in large
cities) but we just happened to be there a couple of weeks ago.

Ikwa is not designed for the customer to walk in, go straight to what he
wants, and straight to the registers. Ikea's here pretty much force you
to walk through the whole store, a very convoluted path to get out.

Ah, right. The grand tour. We count steps, so that's not all bad.
;-)

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:33:03 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 6:17 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 1/7/2017 6:47 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 11:38:40 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:54 AM, John McCoy wrote:
Jack wrote in news
I once bought a lathe chuck from Amazon, when it came, it was in a
Harbor Freight box and had the Harbor Freight number on it. I stuck
the number in at HF site and up popped the exact same item for 30%
less. Made me chuckle as it was still cheap, but smart dude figured
out to list the item on Amazon and buy them at HF.

This happens on Ebay all the time - people buy HF stuff and
sell it at a higher price. Apparently there's a big enough
market of people who've never been in a HF store or seen one
of their advertisements to make it profitable.

John



Precisely and some people will pay extra just to avoid the HF store
smell.. ;~)

Nah, once they open the box their house will have the same smell.


What do a pizza delivery man and a gynecologist have in common?
/
/
/
/
They both have something that smells good but they can't eat it.


I'm betting sometimes they both smell the same "smell/odor" when the
pizza has anchovies. ;~0

moan

On 1/7/2017 6:26 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:11:54 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 5:55 PM, wrote:

There may be a fix. ;~)
When we moved into the home we had build 6 years ago we switched to
Uverse TV, phone and internet.
Service was so unreliable that many on our block dropped Uverse when it
went out for the 3rd time for 4 straight days. We dropped the TV and
eventually the phone. The Uverse DVR does not work like most DVR's,
when the service goes down you loose use of recordings in addition to
the internet and phone.

The Comcast DVR I had for the short time I was in an appartment was
the same.

Anyway I had a problem with our internet service through Uverse and the
repair guy come out to fix their problem. I mentioned that the TV often
stopped and he said it was the box on the outside of out house that was
the problem but they would not repair that. The box was only 5 years
old at the time. He did say that I could have the box replaced for free
if I simply upgraded my internet speed to above 24 gig IIRC. The faster
speeds required the latest versions of the "box". He indicated that I
could upgrade the speed for a month and change back to my previous
speed. He stressed that your contract dies not dictate the speed only
that you continue service. I was out of contract anyway but it was good
to know.

All of our hardware is new. They just installed the fiber a couple of
years ago and just allowed us to connect in '16. All of our hardware
has been replaced (some of it, twice) since then, too.



I did upgrade my speed to what they now call Fiber at 300 gig and the
box was replaced at no extra charge. Very fast and no more TV stopping
for a few seconds.
Unfortunately for us the internet being 20 times faster than our
previous speed is pretty much wasted unless checking my internet speed
on a speed test. If we download a TV show through DirecTV it takes a
long time still. You still have to wait a little while so that it
does not buffer. An On Demand movie might be faster.

Down loading large software updates or programs happens in a snap
however. And for a whole my up load was 300gig also they have throttled
that back to about 75. I don't see the difference between 300 and 75.
It is like trying to distinguish the difference between 1 second and a
quarter second.


Any way........ If you can get the newer box your hesitation may stop.

They've been in the house at least six times in the eight months, or
so, that we've had the service. Most of the problems didn't relate to
the Internet but everything was new and has been replaced at least
once.

Well Uverse was never great for us and one of the reasons we dumped it.
From what I understand Uverse is on the chopping block since ATT
acquired DirecTV.

The only alternative is DSL and DirectTV. Been there. Won't go back.
It's *far* worse.

I had DirecTV back in the early 2000's with the Tivo DVR, when DirecTV
would sell you that DVR. When I up graded several years later to HD,
DirecTV tried to make their own DVR, all of that went down the drain.
The Tivo DirecTV DVR was bullet proof.

DirecTV has ironed out the problems, that bugged us, and is the only
service that we have gone back to.




My TV hesitation was with streaming through the internet and through my
DirecTV DVR. The new box cured the problem. I might add that the fiber
comes up to my house but was not being used to it's full potential until
the faster internet speeds were offered with the new boxes.

Through the DVR? The Internet service doesn't touch the DVR, at least
in our setup, there is a separate router.

We have a separate router but it, through Ethernet, plugs into the
Direct TV DVR for past shows you missed and or OnDemand shows. The DVR
will also, IIRC, work with WiFI but hard wired is better and our home
was prewired for all of that.

Those shows that down loaded through the router hesitated/locked up for
a few seconds periodically along with our computers when working on the
internet, Uverse Internet. That problem went away with the new box that
is designed to handle the 300 Mbps+ speeds.

On 1/7/2017 6:26 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 1/7/2017 6:53 PM, Leon wrote:



An attorney friend mentioned to me, about 18 years ago, that FAX was the
only form of electronic document transfer that was recognized as
acceptable in the American Law system.



That was true but there are ways of digital signing now.
https://www.docusign.com/learn/esign-act-ueta

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:42:27 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 6:26 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:11:54 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 5:55 PM, wrote:

There may be a fix. ;~)
When we moved into the home we had build 6 years ago we switched to
Uverse TV, phone and internet.
Service was so unreliable that many on our block dropped Uverse when it
went out for the 3rd time for 4 straight days. We dropped the TV and
eventually the phone. The Uverse DVR does not work like most DVR's,
when the service goes down you loose use of recordings in addition to
the internet and phone.

The Comcast DVR I had for the short time I was in an appartment was
the same.

Anyway I had a problem with our internet service through Uverse and the
repair guy come out to fix their problem. I mentioned that the TV often
stopped and he said it was the box on the outside of out house that was
the problem but they would not repair that. The box was only 5 years
old at the time. He did say that I could have the box replaced for free
if I simply upgraded my internet speed to above 24 gig IIRC. The faster
speeds required the latest versions of the "box". He indicated that I
could upgrade the speed for a month and change back to my previous
speed. He stressed that your contract dies not dictate the speed only
that you continue service. I was out of contract anyway but it was good
to know.

All of our hardware is new. They just installed the fiber a couple of
years ago and just allowed us to connect in '16. All of our hardware
has been replaced (some of it, twice) since then, too.



I did upgrade my speed to what they now call Fiber at 300 gig and the
box was replaced at no extra charge. Very fast and no more TV stopping
for a few seconds.
Unfortunately for us the internet being 20 times faster than our
previous speed is pretty much wasted unless checking my internet speed
on a speed test. If we download a TV show through DirecTV it takes a
long time still. You still have to wait a little while so that it
does not buffer. An On Demand movie might be faster.

Down loading large software updates or programs happens in a snap
however. And for a whole my up load was 300gig also they have throttled
that back to about 75. I don't see the difference between 300 and 75.
It is like trying to distinguish the difference between 1 second and a
quarter second.


Any way........ If you can get the newer box your hesitation may stop.

They've been in the house at least six times in the eight months, or
so, that we've had the service. Most of the problems didn't relate to
the Internet but everything was new and has been replaced at least
once.

Well Uverse was never great for us and one of the reasons we dumped it.
From what I understand Uverse is on the chopping block since ATT
acquired DirecTV.

The only alternative is DSL and DirectTV. Been there. Won't go back.
It's *far* worse.

I had DirecTV back in the early 2000's with the Tivo DVR, when DirecTV
would sell you that DVR. When I up graded several years later to HD,
DirecTV tried to make their own DVR, all of that went down the drain.
The Tivo DirecTV DVR was bullet proof.

DirecTV has ironed out the problems, that bugged us, and is the only
service that we have gone back to.

I hate satellite TV. We've had both and they're crap. Every time a
cloud rolls by they go out. They claim that it doesn't happen but it
does and they can't/won't fix it. No thanks.


My TV hesitation was with streaming through the internet and through my
DirecTV DVR. The new box cured the problem. I might add that the fiber
comes up to my house but was not being used to it's full potential until
the faster internet speeds were offered with the new boxes.

Through the DVR? The Internet service doesn't touch the DVR, at least
in our setup, there is a separate router.

We have a separate router but it, through Ethernet, plugs into the
Direct TV DVR for past shows you missed and or OnDemand shows. The DVR
will also, IIRC, work with WiFI but hard wired is better and our home
was prewired for all of that.

We can use the DVR in other rooms (via WiFi, or I suppose, Ethernet)
but Internet service isn't routed through the DVR, rather both/all
connect to the router (switch).

Those shows that down loaded through the router hesitated/locked up for
a few seconds periodically along with our computers when working on the
internet, Uverse Internet. That problem went away with the new box that
is designed to handle the 300 Mbps+ speeds.

It's not the TV that hangs, rather the Internet. It's annoying
watching YouTube videos and IHeartRadio hesitates, sometimes, every
few minutes. The TVs are fine (more heavily buffered, I presume).

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 16:24:05 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 1/7/2017 3:59 PM, Puckdropper wrote:

I think the numbers are standard, however the numbers you want to add,
aren't. These really change the fit.

Sizes aren't standard. Maybe they are in certain sizes, but they are
most definitely not standardized in the length my foot is. It is all
across the board: one 9 boot was too long, but a 10 from another company
is correct. A 9.5 shoe is also right. Oh, and I've got a 10 from the
same company that's also the same length as the 9.5.

All I want is a system that's consistent or at the very least based upon
measuring the foot at key points so I can measure those key points on my
feet and buy a pair of shoes without the whole "will it fit?" game.

Puckdropper


I've never found that variation. I'd been wearing the same size, 10 1/2
3E for decades across different brands of shoe and sneaker. You may
have some other attribute that causes your problem. Toe shape, arch,
instep are factors that shoe shape and style do not account for in sizing.

You also have to consider manufacturing tolerance and your normal body
variation during the day. A 1/8" variation is not out of the question.
I've got flat feet and wear anything from an 11 to a 12, depending on
make and style.

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 17:53:37 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 4:18 PM, John McCoy wrote:
Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in news:x9mdneNfKupBnuzFnZ2dnUU7-
:

LOL.... I remember about 20 years ago wondering why FAX was still being
used over e-mail. Only now is Fax falling to e-mail and PDF's.

Mostly because of Asians. Ideographic languages like Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean, with thousands of characters, don't
lend themselves to being typed into emails. So "hand written
then faxed" messages remained the norm there until quite recently.

John



An attorney friend mentioned to me, about 18 years ago, that FAX was the
only form of electronic document transfer that was recognized as
acceptable in the American Law system.

A FAX is considered a "remote original document" - it cannot be
altered in transmission.
A locked PDF is as close as you can get digitally, and is still not
generally accepted as an "original" legally.

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:11:54 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:



They've been in the house at least six times in the eight months, or
so, that we've had the service. Most of the problems didn't relate to
the Internet but everything was new and has been replaced at least
once.

Well Uverse was never great for us and one of the reasons we dumped it.
From what I understand Uverse is on the chopping block since ATT
acquired DirecTV.

My TV hesitation was with streaming through the internet and through my
DirecTV DVR. The new box cured the problem. I might add that the fiber
comes up to my house but was not being used to it's full potential until
the faster internet speeds were offered with the new boxes.


I wouldn't put up with that kind of crappy service. My cable TV and
internet has only been down a few times in over 10 years - and the
pixelating I had on my TV was due to a couple of bad cables.

On Sat, 07 Jan 2017 20:36:12 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:11:54 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:



They've been in the house at least six times in the eight months, or
so, that we've had the service. Most of the problems didn't relate to
the Internet but everything was new and has been replaced at least
once.

Well Uverse was never great for us and one of the reasons we dumped it.
From what I understand Uverse is on the chopping block since ATT
acquired DirecTV.

My TV hesitation was with streaming through the internet and through my
DirecTV DVR. The new box cured the problem. I might add that the fiber
comes up to my house but was not being used to it's full potential until
the faster internet speeds were offered with the new boxes.


I wouldn't put up with that kind of crappy service. My cable TV and
internet has only been down a few times in over 10 years - and the
pixelating I had on my TV was due to a couple of bad cables.

Were there a choice, I wouldn't either.

On 1/7/2017 8:25 PM, wrote:


DirecTV has ironed out the problems, that bugged us, and is the only
service that we have gone back to.

I hate satellite TV. We've had both and they're crap. Every time a
cloud rolls by they go out. They claim that it doesn't happen but it
does and they can't/won't fix it. No thanks.


You must have a decent cable company. We don't. Cable would go out in
light rain, and a hundred other reasons. My neibor stopped over the
other day and was complaining about the cable company and how email is
down frequently.

Takes a really bad storm for DirecTv to go out. In a year we may lose
15 minutes and get pixelation a few seconds a month if heavy storm
clouds. It kept working even in a blizzard.

On 1/7/2017 7:13 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 12:13:22 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:44 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:27:34 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 11:21 PM, wrote:
On 06 Jan 2017 03:41:11 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote in
:


What value? Liability for rent I can see but the era of the mall is
over.

Going back some years we used to go to the mall a couple of times a
month to shop, maybe have lunch or at least a snack. I bet it has
been 3 years since I set foot in a mall, but less than a week since I
made a purchase on line. Sales on line are up 17% last year according
to NBC news.

Amazon also lets me place orders in my underwear. Macy's frowns upon
it.

Malls are now all about the shallow side of the human: cell phones,
clothes, etc. The stores that capture and captivate your attention are
rare. There used to be a Radioshack in every mall (you've got questions,
we've got cell phones!), as well as a KB Toys. Some still have
bookstores, but even they are going to standalone stores.

In Houston we still have a few malls that you would dare step foot into
but the enclosed shopping concept is loosing favor to the large strip
centers. The problem with malls is that you don't know where to park
and you cannot walk directly into the store you want to go to. A mall
is like going to Ikea.

Again, I think the difference is weather. In the North, mega-malls
are still popular because one can get out and walk in the Winter
without freezing. In the South, this isn't a problem even in the
Summer.

You think? LOL In the south we do not relish going from from store in
100 degree heat. I really don't like to park anywhere except in front
of the store I want to go into.

I've lived both places. I'd *much* rather 100F than -30F. There is a
reason I don't live in Vermont anymore. Well, there are a lot of
reasons but that's on the list. ;-)

I do see the mall as being a benefit when there is snow on the ground.
FWIW it was 19 degrees here this morning, while a norm for you northern
folks, you probably were not at 84 degrees earlier in the week or
expecting to be back near 80 on Wednesday. That is about a 120 degree
temp swing in a week.

That wasn't even rare in Vermont, though startin 50F colder. ;-)
I remember a 100F swing, one year.

It was cold here, too, and a fair amount of ice. It was mostly gone
(roads clear) by noon. I doubt that out heat pump will keep up
tonight.

Don't understand your Ikea reference. We have a store but parking is
trivial. It's all in the basement levels of the store (two levels of
parking and two of store). We've only been there twice in the five
years we've been here (don't like driving on the streets in large
cities) but we just happened to be there a couple of weeks ago.

Ikwa is not designed for the customer to walk in, go straight to what he
wants, and straight to the registers. Ikea's here pretty much force you
to walk through the whole store, a very convoluted path to get out.

Ah, right. The grand tour. We count steps, so that's not all bad.
;-)


I melt in the heat.. Would rather it be cold... Although the back
suffers in the cold. But I do more work in the shop in the winter and
fall. In the summer I am out as much as possible, but I can't take the
high humidity with heat..
I have played volleyball outside when it's 100 during the day but only
about 2 hours.. after that i'm done.

--
Jeff

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 21:19:41 -0500, woodchucker
wrote:

On 1/7/2017 7:13 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 12:13:22 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:44 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:27:34 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 11:21 PM, wrote:
On 06 Jan 2017 03:41:11 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote in
:


What value? Liability for rent I can see but the era of the mall is
over.

Going back some years we used to go to the mall a couple of times a
month to shop, maybe have lunch or at least a snack. I bet it has
been 3 years since I set foot in a mall, but less than a week since I
made a purchase on line. Sales on line are up 17% last year according
to NBC news.

Amazon also lets me place orders in my underwear. Macy's frowns upon
it.

Malls are now all about the shallow side of the human: cell phones,
clothes, etc. The stores that capture and captivate your attention are
rare. There used to be a Radioshack in every mall (you've got questions,
we've got cell phones!), as well as a KB Toys. Some still have
bookstores, but even they are going to standalone stores.

In Houston we still have a few malls that you would dare step foot into
but the enclosed shopping concept is loosing favor to the large strip
centers. The problem with malls is that you don't know where to park
and you cannot walk directly into the store you want to go to. A mall
is like going to Ikea.

Again, I think the difference is weather. In the North, mega-malls
are still popular because one can get out and walk in the Winter
without freezing. In the South, this isn't a problem even in the
Summer.

You think? LOL In the south we do not relish going from from store in
100 degree heat. I really don't like to park anywhere except in front
of the store I want to go into.

I've lived both places. I'd *much* rather 100F than -30F. There is a
reason I don't live in Vermont anymore. Well, there are a lot of
reasons but that's on the list. ;-)

I do see the mall as being a benefit when there is snow on the ground.
FWIW it was 19 degrees here this morning, while a norm for you northern
folks, you probably were not at 84 degrees earlier in the week or
expecting to be back near 80 on Wednesday. That is about a 120 degree
temp swing in a week.

That wasn't even rare in Vermont, though startin 50F colder. ;-)
I remember a 100F swing, one year.

It was cold here, too, and a fair amount of ice. It was mostly gone
(roads clear) by noon. I doubt that out heat pump will keep up
tonight.

Don't understand your Ikea reference. We have a store but parking is
trivial. It's all in the basement levels of the store (two levels of
parking and two of store). We've only been there twice in the five
years we've been here (don't like driving on the streets in large
cities) but we just happened to be there a couple of weeks ago.

Ikwa is not designed for the customer to walk in, go straight to what he
wants, and straight to the registers. Ikea's here pretty much force you
to walk through the whole store, a very convoluted path to get out.

Ah, right. The grand tour. We count steps, so that's not all bad.
;-)


I melt in the heat.. Would rather it be cold... Although the back
suffers in the cold. But I do more work in the shop in the winter and
fall. In the summer I am out as much as possible, but I can't take the
high humidity with heat..

In reality, whether it's 100F or -20F, people tend to live inside.
There is a difference, though (more people die from cold than heat).
In the summer it's usually sunny, here. When I lived in VT, from
November to April, the only time we saw the sun was when it was below
zero. It gets pretty grim about March.

I can't take the cold anymore (never could, really). I've had a lot
less trouble with my joints since I moved South. At times I couldn't
walk without crutches because my knees and feet hurt so badly. It's
never been that bad, here.

I have played volleyball outside when it's 100 during the day but only
about 2 hours.. after that i'm done.

Have you played volleyball at -30F? ;-)

On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 21:19:41 -0500, woodchucker
wrote:

SNIPP

I melt in the heat.. Would rather it be cold... Although the back
suffers in the cold. But I do more work in the shop in the winter and
fall. In the summer I am out as much as possible, but I can't take the
high humidity with heat..
I have played volleyball outside when it's 100 during the day but only
about 2 hours.. after that i'm done.


You can put on clothes until you are warm. Can't take off untill you
are cool.
I put up with 115F and 90+% RH for 2 hot seasons down at the Victoria
Falls - when I came back December 1975 the cold almost killed me -
I've never really "enjoyed" the cold since - used to like
snowmobiling, tobogganing and skating, but no more.

Ed Pawlowski wrote in news:k9hcA.238056$hu2.141755
@fx02.iad:

On 1/7/2017 8:25 PM, wrote:

I hate satellite TV. We've had both and they're crap. Every time a
cloud rolls by they go out. They claim that it doesn't happen but it
does and they can't/won't fix it. No thanks.


You must have a decent cable company. We don't. Cable would go out in
light rain, and a hundred other reasons. My neibor stopped over the
other day and was complaining about the cable company and how email is
down frequently.

Takes a really bad storm for DirecTv to go out. In a year we may lose
15 minutes and get pixelation a few seconds a month if heavy storm
clouds. It kept working even in a blizzard.



That's been my experience with Satellite as well. During a snow storm if
the dish stops working it's time to take a broom or a hockey stick or
something and brush the snow off.

We have no cable company, I've looked. I'd love to be rid of AT&T, but
only if the alternative isn't worse. To their credit, they're usually
reliable... but I do lose connection for a few minutes every once in a
while.

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

On 1/7/2017 10:18 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 21:19:41 -0500, woodchucker
wrote:

On 1/7/2017 7:13 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 12:13:22 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:44 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:27:34 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 11:21 PM, wrote:
On 06 Jan 2017 03:41:11 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote in
:


What value? Liability for rent I can see but the era of the mall is
over.

Going back some years we used to go to the mall a couple of times a
month to shop, maybe have lunch or at least a snack. I bet it has
been 3 years since I set foot in a mall, but less than a week since I
made a purchase on line. Sales on line are up 17% last year according
to NBC news.

Amazon also lets me place orders in my underwear. Macy's frowns upon
it.

Malls are now all about the shallow side of the human: cell phones,
clothes, etc. The stores that capture and captivate your attention are
rare. There used to be a Radioshack in every mall (you've got questions,
we've got cell phones!), as well as a KB Toys. Some still have
bookstores, but even they are going to standalone stores.

In Houston we still have a few malls that you would dare step foot into
but the enclosed shopping concept is loosing favor to the large strip
centers. The problem with malls is that you don't know where to park
and you cannot walk directly into the store you want to go to. A mall
is like going to Ikea.

Again, I think the difference is weather. In the North, mega-malls
are still popular because one can get out and walk in the Winter
without freezing. In the South, this isn't a problem even in the
Summer.

You think? LOL In the south we do not relish going from from store in
100 degree heat. I really don't like to park anywhere except in front
of the store I want to go into.

I've lived both places. I'd *much* rather 100F than -30F. There is a
reason I don't live in Vermont anymore. Well, there are a lot of
reasons but that's on the list. ;-)

I do see the mall as being a benefit when there is snow on the ground.
FWIW it was 19 degrees here this morning, while a norm for you northern
folks, you probably were not at 84 degrees earlier in the week or
expecting to be back near 80 on Wednesday. That is about a 120 degree
temp swing in a week.

That wasn't even rare in Vermont, though startin 50F colder. ;-)
I remember a 100F swing, one year.

It was cold here, too, and a fair amount of ice. It was mostly gone
(roads clear) by noon. I doubt that out heat pump will keep up
tonight.

Don't understand your Ikea reference. We have a store but parking is
trivial. It's all in the basement levels of the store (two levels of
parking and two of store). We've only been there twice in the five
years we've been here (don't like driving on the streets in large
cities) but we just happened to be there a couple of weeks ago.

Ikwa is not designed for the customer to walk in, go straight to what he
wants, and straight to the registers. Ikea's here pretty much force you
to walk through the whole store, a very convoluted path to get out.

Ah, right. The grand tour. We count steps, so that's not all bad.
;-)


I melt in the heat.. Would rather it be cold... Although the back
suffers in the cold. But I do more work in the shop in the winter and
fall. In the summer I am out as much as possible, but I can't take the
high humidity with heat..

In reality, whether it's 100F or -20F, people tend to live inside.
There is a difference, though (more people die from cold than heat).
In the summer it's usually sunny, here. When I lived in VT, from
November to April, the only time we saw the sun was when it was below
zero. It gets pretty grim about March.

I can't take the cold anymore (never could, really). I've had a lot
less trouble with my joints since I moved South. At times I couldn't
walk without crutches because my knees and feet hurt so badly. It's
never been that bad, here.

I have played volleyball outside when it's 100 during the day but only
about 2 hours.. after that i'm done.

Have you played volleyball at -30F? ;-)

Not -30 but we play in the winter between football playoffs and the
super bowl. We call it the frost bowl, and no matter what the weather we
play. One year it was blowing probably 40 -50 mph and it was somewhere
around 10.. it felt like 30 below. It was hard playing with the ball
moving so much. We tried blocking the wind with trucks, but the cops
came and threatened us since we were on park property.

--
Jeff

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

In article ,
says...

On 1/5/2017 6:17 PM, wrote:
Sears today supposedly has value because of all the real estate it owns-occupies in malls across the country. Not because it has retail sales. The sales side started dying awhile ago. And likely will continue. K-Mart never upped its game to compete with Wal-Mart. So it is gone now. The Craftsman, Kenmore, Diehard brands are all good. But now days its easy to buy the same quality or better easily. No need to go to a Sears store.

And I do not know if the real estate value of Sears is good anymore either. I don't think malls are the gathering place they used to be. Several of the older malls in my half million people town have slowly withered. There is a NEW mall that is a happening place. But older malls, no. New, yes. Times have changed and Sears did not change with them.


What value? Liability for rent I can see but the era of the mall is over.

Going back some years we used to go to the mall a couple of times a
month to shop, maybe have lunch or at least a snack. I bet it has been
3 years since I set foot in a mall, but less than a week since I made a
purchase on line. Sales on line are up 17% last year according to NBC
news.

Amazon also lets me place orders in my underwear. Macy's frowns upon it.

How do they know? Hint--you can order online at
Macys, and the online store has some stuff (Big
& Tall sizes for example) that the brick and
mortar stores have to special order.

In article e53f370e-286c-47b5-96b8-4750c73cc302
@googlegroups.com,
says...

On Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 1:33:36 PM UTC-6, woodchucker wrote:
On 1/5/2017 1:40 PM, Leon wrote:
Apparently Craftsman was around before Sears acquired it 90 years ago.
And now Sears is selling Craftsman tools to Stanley.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sears-...--finance.html


Yep, not sure how selling off the better selling lines will save Sears.
If you sell them, you get quick cash, but then what?

I think Sears will go out of business shortly. Been 2 years that I have
been waiting for them to give up. Last Christmas, no one was in the
store I went to, while all the other stores were packed.

The craftsman line is not what it once was. Too bad. But don't look to
Stanley, B&D to bring it back. They are horrendous at managing the tool
lines..

Dewalt, B&D, Milwaukee, Stanley, are all former shells of what they once
were. The latest one to drop was Milwaukee, with people lamenting that
the quality has dropped.

Even B&D coffee maker sucks now.

I don't see this as a bad thing, nor a good thing.


--
Jeff

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
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Does not bode well for quality but I've got a few Craftsman tools and for parts and service I'm glad a company without a foot in the grave will take over.

I'm kind of tempted to drop the bucks for one of
their big mechanic tool sets before they're
gone. OTOH, I've been taking the Jeep apart for
years now with a 50 buck Harbor Freight set so
maybe not.

In article 9qu4kd-4gq2.ln1
@oceanview.tundraware.com,
says...

On 01/05/2017 03:54 PM, Leon wrote:
ears cannot survive at this rate, thank you K-Mart.

This has little to do with K-Mart. These traditional retailers
are getting their lunch handed to them because they did not
adapt to the world of eCommerce in a timely and effective way.

And in the case of Sears it's really sad because
as one of the pioneers of mail-order it would
have been a natural extension of their original
business model.

But it's an old story-company comes up with a
good idea and then can't believe that anybody
can better it.

Amazon has set the bar very high for very fast delivery, great
pricing, and painless returns ... all from your living room. Some
traditional vendors figured this out. Some - Sears as one example -
did not. They're done for.

Capitalism and markets seek efficiency and punish the lack thereof
mercilessly. Creative Destruction is bad for individual actors,
but good for the marketplace overall.

On 1/7/2017 7:25 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:42:27 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 6:26 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 18:11:54 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 5:55 PM, wrote:

There may be a fix. ;~)
When we moved into the home we had build 6 years ago we switched to
Uverse TV, phone and internet.
Service was so unreliable that many on our block dropped Uverse when it
went out for the 3rd time for 4 straight days. We dropped the TV and
eventually the phone. The Uverse DVR does not work like most DVR's,
when the service goes down you loose use of recordings in addition to
the internet and phone.

The Comcast DVR I had for the short time I was in an appartment was
the same.

Anyway I had a problem with our internet service through Uverse and the
repair guy come out to fix their problem. I mentioned that the TV often
stopped and he said it was the box on the outside of out house that was
the problem but they would not repair that. The box was only 5 years
old at the time. He did say that I could have the box replaced for free
if I simply upgraded my internet speed to above 24 gig IIRC. The faster
speeds required the latest versions of the "box". He indicated that I
could upgrade the speed for a month and change back to my previous
speed. He stressed that your contract dies not dictate the speed only
that you continue service. I was out of contract anyway but it was good
to know.

All of our hardware is new. They just installed the fiber a couple of
years ago and just allowed us to connect in '16. All of our hardware
has been replaced (some of it, twice) since then, too.



I did upgrade my speed to what they now call Fiber at 300 gig and the
box was replaced at no extra charge. Very fast and no more TV stopping
for a few seconds.
Unfortunately for us the internet being 20 times faster than our
previous speed is pretty much wasted unless checking my internet speed
on a speed test. If we download a TV show through DirecTV it takes a
long time still. You still have to wait a little while so that it
does not buffer. An On Demand movie might be faster.

Down loading large software updates or programs happens in a snap
however. And for a whole my up load was 300gig also they have throttled
that back to about 75. I don't see the difference between 300 and 75.
It is like trying to distinguish the difference between 1 second and a
quarter second.


Any way........ If you can get the newer box your hesitation may stop.

They've been in the house at least six times in the eight months, or
so, that we've had the service. Most of the problems didn't relate to
the Internet but everything was new and has been replaced at least
once.

Well Uverse was never great for us and one of the reasons we dumped it.
From what I understand Uverse is on the chopping block since ATT
acquired DirecTV.

The only alternative is DSL and DirectTV. Been there. Won't go back.
It's *far* worse.

I had DirecTV back in the early 2000's with the Tivo DVR, when DirecTV
would sell you that DVR. When I up graded several years later to HD,
DirecTV tried to make their own DVR, all of that went down the drain.
The Tivo DirecTV DVR was bullet proof.

DirecTV has ironed out the problems, that bugged us, and is the only
service that we have gone back to.

I hate satellite TV. We've had both and they're crap. Every time a
cloud rolls by they go out. They claim that it doesn't happen but it
does and they can't/won't fix it. No thanks.

Location and the install has a lot to do with reception. We have fewer
issues with dish than we had with Uverse or cable. BUT we did have a
lot of trouble with dish when we first switched to HD dish.






My TV hesitation was with streaming through the internet and through my
DirecTV DVR. The new box cured the problem. I might add that the fiber
comes up to my house but was not being used to it's full potential until
the faster internet speeds were offered with the new boxes.

Through the DVR? The Internet service doesn't touch the DVR, at least
in our setup, there is a separate router.

Yes, just like the blue ray and smart TV. I use a switch to supply
Ethernet to those components plus the Roku. DVR gets data from the
satellite dish and the internet.



We have a separate router but it, through Ethernet, plugs into the
Direct TV DVR for past shows you missed and or OnDemand shows. The DVR
will also, IIRC, work with WiFI but hard wired is better and our home
was prewired for all of that.

We can use the DVR in other rooms (via WiFi, or I suppose, Ethernet)
but Internet service isn't routed through the DVR, rather both/all
connect to the router (switch).

Same here, use the DVR in other rooms. Yeah if you have Uverse, it
probably works a lot like cable IIRC.



Those shows that down loaded through the router hesitated/locked up for
a few seconds periodically along with our computers when working on the
internet, Uverse Internet. That problem went away with the new box that
is designed to handle the 300 Mbps+ speeds.

It's not the TV that hangs, rather the Internet. It's annoying
watching YouTube videos and IHeartRadio hesitates, sometimes, every
few minutes. The TVs are fine (more heavily buffered, I presume).

Well, remember our shows coming through the internet hesitated on the
TV, but not through the dish, you are not watching shows coming from the
internet. But because our TV/DVR/Roku all connect to the internet also,
the pause in the internet shows also along with the internet on the
computers were an issue before the new outside box.

I thought it was an area problem, the hesitation but the installer
assured me that the newer box, the one capable of handling higher speeds
would solve the hesitation problem with everything connected to the
internet. He was correct.

In article l-OdndxO45_qY-3FnZ2dnUU7-
, lcb11211@swbelldotnet
says...

On 1/6/2017 5:07 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 6 Jan 2017 16:14:25 +0000 (UTC), John McCoy
wrote:

Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in news:QZOdnbpFJasTtvLFnZ2dnUU7-
:

On 1/5/2017 10:37 PM, wrote:

Sears didn't kill sears. Nor did Walmart. Nor did the Internet. The
North American Public killed Sears. And are the poorer for it, when
you get right down to brass tacks.

I believe it was merging with KMart that killed Sears. KMart had bad
deals going back in the early 90's.

KMart was the "coup de grace" - and a great lesson in how to
use bankruptcy court to avoid all your mistakes and make a
fortune from other people's money - but Sears's problems go
way back before that.

Sears was once what Amazon is today - you could buy anything
from them. Mail in your order, and in a week or two go down
to the Railway Express Agency(*) and pick up your package.
With the arrival of mall culture in the 50's and 60's, Sears
let the catalog business fade away, and became just like a
hundred other department stores (most of which have long
since disappeared). Come the revival of mail-order, and
instead of Sears sitting pretty with an order processing and
shipping system already in place, they have nothing - and
the new guys take over that space.

You could by a house, a car, a motorcycle, all your furniture, all
your clothing, all your tools and hardware - virtually anything you
needed "on line" (the phone line) back in the early years of Sears.
They were WAY ahead of their time. They totally lost touch by racing
all of their "competition" to the bottom.


Yeahhhhh they dropped the house, car, motorcycle long before they had
any real competition.

FWIW, I grew up in a Sears house. Can't
honestly say much for them. Sturdy enough I
guess but that's about it.

On 1/7/2017 8:07 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 1/7/2017 8:25 PM, wrote:


DirecTV has ironed out the problems, that bugged us, and is the only
service that we have gone back to.

I hate satellite TV. We've had both and they're crap. Every time a
cloud rolls by they go out. They claim that it doesn't happen but it
does and they can't/won't fix it. No thanks.


You must have a decent cable company. We don't. Cable would go out in
light rain, and a hundred other reasons. My neibor stopped over the
other day and was complaining about the cable company and how email is
down frequently.

Takes a really bad storm for DirecTv to go out. In a year we may lose
15 minutes and get pixelation a few seconds a month if heavy storm
clouds. It kept working even in a blizzard.



I will side with krw about DirecTV. In the past it has been horrible.

We got DirecTV many years ago somewhere around 2004 before HD TV was
available through DirecTV. It was bullet proof.

A few years later we upgraded to HD, just as it was introduced to our
area, and it was HORRIBLE. I was talking to technicians every day. The
picture would stop and pixelate and often we would loose 5~10 seconds of
sound. That got better with 4~5 HD DVR swap outs but was never resolved
totally.

In late 2010 we moved into a new house and went with UVERSE. Oddly
weather affected that too except it would be out for days at a time.

In the summer of 2013 during a 5 day period that Uverse was out for the
whole neighborhood, we went back to DirecTV but with the Genie DVR.
Since that point our service has been great.

On 1/7/2017 7:33 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 17:53:37 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 4:18 PM, John McCoy wrote:
Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in news:x9mdneNfKupBnuzFnZ2dnUU7-
:

LOL.... I remember about 20 years ago wondering why FAX was still being
used over e-mail. Only now is Fax falling to e-mail and PDF's.

Mostly because of Asians. Ideographic languages like Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean, with thousands of characters, don't
lend themselves to being typed into emails. So "hand written
then faxed" messages remained the norm there until quite recently.

John



An attorney friend mentioned to me, about 18 years ago, that FAX was the
only form of electronic document transfer that was recognized as
acceptable in the American Law system.

A FAX is considered a "remote original document" - it cannot be
altered in transmission.

Well "cannot" be altered is relative. We got FAX, at work, that were
indistinguishable. If you do not have a clean line or a good fax
machine to send, the receiver gets altered documents. ;~)

But I understand what you are saying, a FAX cannot be hacked and changed
so to speak.





A locked PDF is as close as you can get digitally, and is still not
generally accepted as an "original" legally.

On 1/7/2017 8:19 PM, woodchucker wrote:
On 1/7/2017 7:13 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 12:13:22 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/7/2017 10:44 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 09:27:34 -0600, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 11:21 PM, wrote:
On 06 Jan 2017 03:41:11 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote in
:


What value? Liability for rent I can see but the era of the
mall is
over.

Going back some years we used to go to the mall a couple of times a
month to shop, maybe have lunch or at least a snack. I bet it has
been 3 years since I set foot in a mall, but less than a week
since I
made a purchase on line. Sales on line are up 17% last year
according
to NBC news.

Amazon also lets me place orders in my underwear. Macy's frowns
upon
it.

Malls are now all about the shallow side of the human: cell phones,
clothes, etc. The stores that capture and captivate your
attention are
rare. There used to be a Radioshack in every mall (you've got
questions,
we've got cell phones!), as well as a KB Toys. Some still have
bookstores, but even they are going to standalone stores.

In Houston we still have a few malls that you would dare step foot
into
but the enclosed shopping concept is loosing favor to the large strip
centers. The problem with malls is that you don't know where to park
and you cannot walk directly into the store you want to go to. A mall
is like going to Ikea.

Again, I think the difference is weather. In the North, mega-malls
are still popular because one can get out and walk in the Winter
without freezing. In the South, this isn't a problem even in the
Summer.

You think? LOL In the south we do not relish going from from store in
100 degree heat. I really don't like to park anywhere except in front
of the store I want to go into.

I've lived both places. I'd *much* rather 100F than -30F. There is a
reason I don't live in Vermont anymore. Well, there are a lot of
reasons but that's on the list. ;-)

I do see the mall as being a benefit when there is snow on the ground.
FWIW it was 19 degrees here this morning, while a norm for you northern
folks, you probably were not at 84 degrees earlier in the week or
expecting to be back near 80 on Wednesday. That is about a 120 degree
temp swing in a week.

That wasn't even rare in Vermont, though startin 50F colder. ;-)
I remember a 100F swing, one year.

It was cold here, too, and a fair amount of ice. It was mostly gone
(roads clear) by noon. I doubt that out heat pump will keep up
tonight.

Don't understand your Ikea reference. We have a store but parking is
trivial. It's all in the basement levels of the store (two levels of
parking and two of store). We've only been there twice in the five
years we've been here (don't like driving on the streets in large
cities) but we just happened to be there a couple of weeks ago.

Ikwa is not designed for the customer to walk in, go straight to what he
wants, and straight to the registers. Ikea's here pretty much force you
to walk through the whole store, a very convoluted path to get out.

Ah, right. The grand tour. We count steps, so that's not all bad.
;-)


I melt in the heat.. Would rather it be cold... Although the back
suffers in the cold. But I do more work in the shop in the winter and
fall. In the summer I am out as much as possible, but I can't take the
high humidity with heat..
I have played volleyball outside when it's 100 during the day but only
about 2 hours.. after that i'm done.

Stay away from the Houston area in the summer. LOL

With heat you can shed clothes. With cold adding more clothes restricts
mobility. LOL

Swingman and I were working together on a new home installing kitchen
cabinets that we had built. IIRC this was 2008 or 2009. This was near
Austin TX out in the country. The house was a straw bale house with
great insulation. Because the build was out in the country we closed
the house up at the end of the day to keep critters out. The next
morning the inside of the house was as hot as when we left it the
previous day. I recall stopping for the day around 5 pm and the temp
being 106. Remember, the inside of the house the next mornings were
about that hot too. We had a couple of fans to keep us slightly cooler
but one fan got so hot that it quit working. I thought it was toast but
it started up the next morning and has worked fine ever since.

On 1/7/2017 10:32 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 21:19:41 -0500, woodchucker
wrote:

SNIPP

I melt in the heat.. Would rather it be cold... Although the back
suffers in the cold. But I do more work in the shop in the winter and
fall. In the summer I am out as much as possible, but I can't take the
high humidity with heat..
I have played volleyball outside when it's 100 during the day but only
about 2 hours.. after that i'm done.


You can put on clothes until you are warm. Can't take off untill you
are cool.

Well actually taking clothes off makes you cooler but adding more
clothes restricts mobility. This is an assumption that you are working
outside all day in the extreme cold or heat. It's a b___h working out
side in the cold and not being able to move freely.





I put up with 115F and 90+% RH for 2 hot seasons down at the Victoria
Falls - when I came back December 1975 the cold almost killed me -
I've never really "enjoyed" the cold since - used to like
snowmobiling, tobogganing and skating, but no more.

On 1/8/2017 10:35 AM, J. Clarke wrote:
In article e53f370e-286c-47b5-96b8-4750c73cc302
@googlegroups.com,
says...

On Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 1:33:36 PM UTC-6, woodchucker wrote:
On 1/5/2017 1:40 PM, Leon wrote:
Apparently Craftsman was around before Sears acquired it 90 years ago.
And now Sears is selling Craftsman tools to Stanley.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sears-...--finance.html


Yep, not sure how selling off the better selling lines will save Sears.
If you sell them, you get quick cash, but then what?

I think Sears will go out of business shortly. Been 2 years that I have
been waiting for them to give up. Last Christmas, no one was in the
store I went to, while all the other stores were packed.

The craftsman line is not what it once was. Too bad. But don't look to
Stanley, B&D to bring it back. They are horrendous at managing the tool
lines..

Dewalt, B&D, Milwaukee, Stanley, are all former shells of what they once
were. The latest one to drop was Milwaukee, with people lamenting that
the quality has dropped.

Even B&D coffee maker sucks now.

I don't see this as a bad thing, nor a good thing.


--
Jeff

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Does not bode well for quality but I've got a few Craftsman tools and for parts and service I'm glad a company without a foot in the grave will take over.

I'm kind of tempted to drop the bucks for one of
their big mechanic tool sets before they're
gone. OTOH, I've been taking the Jeep apart for
years now with a 50 buck Harbor Freight set so
maybe not.



Craftsman will still be around, it is Sears that might disappear. You
can get craftsman at 6 other brand stores too.

https://www.craftsman.com/where-to-buy?location=77407

You might also consider Northern Tool for tools too. We have a few of
their stores in the Houston area and they, compared to HF, are much
nicer and do carry brand name tools.

BUT they have their own brand of sockets and wrenches that resemble the
slick chrome that SnapOn sells/used to sell.
The wrenches are pretty darn inexpensive and have a life time warranty.
I have a few of their wrenches for special use and am impressed for the
money.


I bought this particular wrench to replace the wrench that came with the
router. Like Craftsman you can buy individual wrenches.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...posted-public/

In article XnsA6F56F62F527Epogosupernews@
46.165.242.91, says...

woodchucker wrote in
:

Yep, not sure how selling off the better selling lines will save
Sears. If you sell them, you get quick cash, but then what?

Sears management beleives (or has deluded themselves into
beleiving, or more likely is trying to delude the share-
holders into beleiving) that with a little time and investment
they can recover the business. With current costs exceeding
revenues, they have neither time nor funds to invest. Hence
the idea that selling assets will give them time & money to
fix the problem.

I think Sears will go out of business shortly.

I agree with you. I don't think they have a clue how to
solve their problems - they're still trying to figure out
"how do we compete with Walmart", when the world has moved
on and the real competition is the likes of Dollar General
(and, of course, Amazon).

And in hand tools Harbor Freight. There are as
many Harbor Freight stores here as there are
Sears. I used to go to Sears in preference
because the closest Harbor Freight was twice as
far away and I drove past the Sears to get
there, but with that Sears closing, I drive past
Harbor Freight to get to the closest Sears now .
.. .

In article ,
says...

On 1/7/17 3:43 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 6 Jan 2017 23:22:41 -0600, -MIKE-
wrote:

On 1/6/17 10:45 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 06 Jan 2017 19:34:58 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 6 Jan 2017 15:52:47 -0600, Leon
lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:

On 1/6/2017 3:00 PM, Jack wrote:
On 1/6/2017 10:57 AM, John McCoy wrote:

I think Sears will go out of business shortly.

I agree with you. I don't think they have a clue how to
solve their problems - they're still trying to figure
out "how do we compete with Walmart", when the world has
moved on and the real competition is the likes of Dollar
General (and, of course, Amazon).

I recently mentioned I was looking to replace my Sony
earphones. Amazon doubled the price from $14 to $27, plus
shipping. I finally found them online at Walmart for $14
and free shipping. Walmart knows whats up, and if Amazon
isn't careful, it will be in the bag with Sears/Kmart.




Not everything purchased through Amazon is supplied or sold
by Amazon. There are thousands of retailers selling their
goods on Amazon and they ship direct from their stores, and
they have all different prices and many are not even in the
ball park of being competitively priced.
But being aligned with Amazon, the (sheeple) public are
convinced they are getting the deal of the century - just
because they bought it online from Amazon - - - - - - .

Sure. Sometimes paying the $13 is less painful than spending a
day finding the cheapest price.


Not only that, but many times you do indeed get the best price. If
you happen to be within a certain distance of a warehouse you can
get same day delivery. I had a friend who ordered a printer and had
it delivered to his door two hours later. He went on Amazon and
spent about 15 minutes finding the printer he needed at the best
price, hit a button and had it on his door step 2 hours later. He
could've spent two hours driving around town, from store to store,
wasting gas, wasting time, getting ****ed off in traffic, and
gotten the same printer, maybe at the same price. But no, he was
sitting at home, in his studio, making money, no gas, no driving,
no frustration, and the printer was at his front door in two
hours.

In a way Amazon is merging new school and old school. There was a
time when groceries and drug stores, and appliance stores delivered
things to your home and it was considered normal. Amazon is
bringing that back along with everything that is new in technology
and consumerism.
That only works if you are just down the road from an Amazon
warehouse. They'd need a cruise missile to get a printer to me in 2
hours. I can usually count on 3 days for a "fast" delivery if it is
coming from Canada - a week if it has to cross the border.


Correct, it's different for different areas.
Keep in mind, though, that the way Amazon is expanding, a year or two
from now you might have the same experience that we do.

Which suggests to me that Amazon is engaging in
exactly the kind of overexpansion that killed a
lot of brick-and-mortar stores. Their prices
have risen to a level where I don't use them
anymore unless I need something I can't get
locally.

On Sun, 08 Jan 2017 13:18:42 -0500, J. Clarke wrote:

Which suggests to me that Amazon is engaging in exactly the kind of
overexpansion that killed a lot of brick-and-mortar stores. Their
prices have risen to a level where I don't use them anymore unless I
need something I can't get locally.

I've noticed that price increase as well. Used to get a lot of low-end
electronic components from Amazon, now I go to Ebay. I've never had a
problem with a vendor, but I do check out their ratings and reviews first.

--
What if a much of a which of a wind gives the truth to summer's lie?

On 2017-01-08, Larry Blanchard wrote:

problem with a vendor, but I do check out their ratings and reviews first.

I've found Amazon's ratings to be unreliable. This after shopping on
Amazon fer yrs. I even used to have Prime. No more.

I bought a banjo stand based on over 100+ reviews that gave the item a
five star rating. I ordered it, based soley on its Amazon rating and it's
basically a piece of junk. The reviews had to be bogus.

nb