Probably not too difficult to make the app itself. To build the network of drivers to make a consistent enough service to attract users(and then more drivers to expand further) is the tricky part. + insurance and regulation, when they started they didn’t have to deal with it as much until they did, and by then they had resources to do so.
Traditional cable TV you would sit on a sofa and flip through channels with a remote control, yes, but your typical Comcast/Charter/Wave/RCN type cable multiservice operator is morphing into a DOCIS3/DOCSIS3.1 or GPON fiber based last mile DIA ISP.
The cable tv operators care about their municipal franchise agreements and aerial pole+underground right of way very much, since it gives them an incumbent ISP operating position over a large geographical area.
I should note that cable TV operators in a given city might have many different types of last mile architecture. Some of which can be taxed by the city, and some of which cannot. There's cable TV operators with their wholly-owned wood utility poles installed in the ROW (right of way), there's operators where they occupy a strand on a municipal electrical grid operator's poles, there's operators which are on poles shared 3-way between electrical grid operator, local telco, and cable TV. In newer housing developments some might occupy their own fully underground ducts between handholes and manholes with the ducts in the ROW. Or the ducts might be in land owned by HOAs. It depends very much on the history of how the analog cable TV system in a city got built out in the 1970s and 1980s and other factors.
In places that are unfortunate enough to lack real competition between the cable TV operator and the local phone company for last-mile, it can give an operator a near monopoly advantage. For instance you might be able to get 200 Mbps downstream service from Comcast while the local phone company can only offer 10Mbps ADSL2+.
Some smart people at the local phone company probably have your area on a map targeted for a single-strand to the home GPON FTTH overbuild, but accomplishing that in the near future is either limited by budget concerns or lack of manpower/bucket truck, lineman and splicer crews to accomplish it.
On the part of the city that might be bringing in 450,000 dollars a year in cable TV franchise tax revenue, it's such a short sighted move. Yes, maybe your cable TV franchise tax will continue to drop, as more people disconnect cable tv (taxed) and move to pure internet services (not taxed).
But the economic benefit to a city of having multiple, overlapping competing gigabit-class services to the end user is greater than the tax revenue. For instance the parts of Seattle right now where you can work from home and have your choice of centurylink (telco ILEC) GPON 1Gbps FTTH, or 1Gbps DOCSIS3.1 or GPON from Wave or Comcast.
Centurylink has pulled quite a bit of fiber in Seattle over the last 3 years, but their expansion plans are erratic (eg: putting a 12 port GPON aerial terminal in the middle of blocks of 4 story MDUs that aren't allowed to use it) and the serviceability database often has said GPON ports misallocated due to incorrect identification of the number of units in a particular property.
I think Centurylink is hard up for cash at the moment, as they just dropped gigabit fiber with a free modem & install down to $49 a month for life in most areas. Frontier did similar offers for the 2 years prior to selling the Pacific Northwest division to Ziply Fiber.
Ultimately the City of Seattle struck a bad franchise agreement with Centurylink that didn't mandate universal fiber coverage like more sparsely populated suburbs did (eg: Lynnwood, Kenmore, etc). The effectiveness of these agreements was middling though, only the litigious cities were able to ensure the franchise agreement was enforced.
Poorer townships like Kenmore have universal fiber service available to every property by 2005 written in as a hard requirement of their franchise agreements with the telco, but without enforcement action the fiber will not be built.
One of the things that distinguishes the 1Gbps to the home market in Seattle is the number of MDU specialists, and percentage of 35+ unit apartments or condos that have at least one gigabit provider in the building. I'm thinking of the AS54858 network (CondoInternet/WaveG), independent smaller player Atlas Networks, in addition to Comcast and Centurylink.
The WaveG MDU network is in a lot of places in the city which are not Wave cable incumbent territory. It started as its own independent network in areas that are traditionally Comcast/Centurylink territory around the core of downtown, capitol hill, south lake union etc and was later acquired by Wave. The Wave cable TV network was historically its own distinct thing in a different set of franchise territories within the city boundaries.
The origins of what we would call Wave in the City of Seattle are with Broadstripe. The same guys who acquired Broadstripe out of bankruptcy and glued it together with a bunch of other acquired small to medium cable MSOs on the west coast, are the ones who formed Northwest Fiber (now Ziply) to acquire the PNW assets of Frontier.
Ultimately for a full understanding of what Clink and Ziply are doing and where their last mile and midddle mile networks are the strongest, one needs to have a historical understanding of the Pacific Northwest Bell network (-->USWest-->Qwest-->Clink) and the areas that were historically GTE territory (GTE-->Frontier-->Ziply).
On the topic of the city government of Seattle and its franchise agreement with CenturyLink. I don't think a city government ever has much negotiating leverage with an ILEC such as this. The clink network in Seattle is the result of 100 years of incumbent copper phone line dialtone service, clink setting its own poles in many places, and is a core part of municipal infrastructure. The city can't reasonably force the company to vacate the right of way or cease services without causing a severe impact on the residents of the city. There's no plausible scenario in which a new franchise agreement won't put be into place...
I think that is what is being said. Effexor is not addictive in the ‘traditional’ sense addictive drugs are, but you’re brain and body become dependent on them in ways you don’t realize until you’re trying to come off of them. And because it is a process to find the right medication, you don’t want to be starting and stopping those kinds of medications over and over. A stimulant may be seen as more addictive (due to the potential for abuse / dopamine release), but starting Ritalin then switching to adderall, then say vyvanse, is a less invasive process than starting Effexor then coming off and switching to Wellbutrin etc
Very well put. My primary care doctor was happy to prescribe at the recommendation of my psychologist. When I spoke to my psychologist initially, I took the approach you mentioned about suspecting I had it based on the symptoms and what others around me had told me.
I got diagnosed at 29 also and had almost an identical experience to yours and the person above you. I often think of what a difference it would have made to know earlier (in so many ways).
>>Life is too short to waste time fighting against yourself
No protections in place and blindly trusted her kid. It is her responsibility to manage her passwords, not Amazon / twitch / whoever else. A shitty situation for sure but if she wants the $ press charges, if she doesn’t want to press charges then she must forego the 20k. Not as simple as that to her, but to everyone else it is.
My friend used to live in a building like this. It is assumed that everyone else in the building is equally rich and also have their own floor, so they would be able to ride up with you as you would with them. The problem now with air BNB is that you don’t really know who’s supposed to be in the building or not as many of the residents list them when they are away, which is often(either visiting their other properties or travelling recreationally/for work).
These buildings also change hands, whether between family members, or just outright sales, more so if a unit in the building is currently for sale, someone could access the building by showing interest, not even with the real estate agent but just telling the doorman you have a viewing. You wouldn’t have to hack the elevator at all and I doubt this perpetrator did. It would take a pretty vigilant doorman to stop this/determine the identity and purpose of all visitors.
Most of the doormen are there to provide additional services to the residents, like having a cab waiting when they are on their way out and other small conveniences, not so much as gate keepers especially since 99.99% of the people entering are no cause for concern.
Someone I worked with had a nephew who spent $4000 on I think it was FarmVille in one month. It took them a while but they were able to recover the money because the kid was underage and using the parents credit card.
