How do you know what they are thinking?

Did you read a headline written by a source you don't know and assume it was true?

Do you suppose that there is really a Japanese minister today that has never used a computer? A smart phone? A microwave? A TV? An MP3 player? A network-connected device?

They probably use a computer to enter their home or office. Their desk phone is probably a computer. Their car radio is a computer.

It would be quite a challenge to find a living person in Japan today who has not used a computer. I suppose nothing is impossible, but some claims are so hyperbolic as to be ignored.

This has not been my experience. I happen to live in a area that has seen a handful of new sequestrations in the last 20 years--3 or so in the last 5 years. The result has been to lock the public out. Locations that my family have enjoyed for decades are now off limits.

This is distinct from the military land grabs in Nevada. But it's interesting to see the contrast. After evicting families from their own land to expand Air Force testing grounds, the government has decided they still don't have enough control of Nevada public lands. So they are annexing[0] more than 270,000 acres of wildlife refuge for military use. That's right, "forever open for everyone to experience and explore."

[0] https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/military/air-force-finali...

The new contract can be something we collaborate on. Them, their lawyers, me, my lawyers, the whole happy family. We can take four or five years to do that. I'll pay them when we sort it all out.

Or... they can accept my thanks for sewing my toe back on and bill my insurance.

Either way, we are on much more equal ground after the fact.

It is a point of amusement to me to see that the receptionist is extremely uncomfortable agreeing to the terms I have come up with in the last five minutes. They don't think it is reasonable for me to expect them to execute the altered contract without consulting attorneys. I point out that five minutes ago they asked me to sign a contract without consulting a legal expert. Their multi-page contract had been painstakingly drafted by a team of expensive lawyers and meticulously tweaked over years. Yet they gave me mere seconds to read it, understand it, and sign it under duress of not receiving medical attention. If they balk at the contract I hand back to them, how can they expect me not to balk at the original contract?

On the other hand, if they refuse to provide medical care because I wouldn't sign away my rights to any photographs that might be submitted to medical journals, they had better be very confident in their lawyers.

Banks, rental agencies, repair shops, etc., on the other hand, can safely refuse my revised contract. Most don't glance at them when I hand them back.

And some games really can be educational, or develop thinking skills, etc. I wonder what game critics would say about a child spending hours a day playing Chess.

But all chess and no soccer is not a good mix. All Fortnite and no chess is not a good mix. In fact, I seriously question the value of any Fortnite or Minecraft. As entertainment, a little bit isn't worse than many other entertainments. But too much is too much.

And as far as entertainment goes, I'm tired of yet another Marvel movie where we can blow up as many things as possible in the most spectacular ways and never even think about consequences. I know it's goofy to worry about real life when we are talking about mythological characters and aliens. But I do think that we spend a huge amount of time and money to train youth to disconnect from real life. If somebody dies on the other side of town, it isn't real so it doesn't matter. If you have to kill 100 opponents to get to the princess, it's all part of the game.

But many years ago we played cops and robbers and killed each other, too. Or cowboys and Indians. And we argued about whether somebody should be dead or not because of how many times they'd been shot. And we graduated from pointing fingers to rubberbands to add some realism. Then paintballs.

So I suppose the human brain is capable of sorting it all out.

But I think it is healthy to feed the brain some balance. Put down the controller and join a service project now and then. Adopt a highway, or visit a care center. Connect with real people and remind your brain that video games aren't real. And stealing cars isn't the only way to win the game. In fact, it's just wrong.

So if I purchase a car for $3000, I expect to own it for 5 years with minimal problems. There is room for a bad alternator or a starter. But not too many of those over that 5 years. Of course, if I can sell it for $1500 after the 5 years, that's another $1500 I can sink into maintenance and still justify that it cost me < $1000/year.

If I spend $10K, I have to think the car will be reliable for 15 years with ~$5K of repairs along the way.

In the past five years or so I have thought I might need to raise that $1000/year figure to reflect modern practicality. But, surprisingly, I haven't really needed to. Cars are becoming amazingly more durable, and prices in the used car market aren't sky-rocketing the same as in the new car market.

Still, it is time to make the transition to electric. The used electric market is still very immature. I don't want a used Prius. I'm ignorant of how to value used batteries, so I'm not sure what the maintenance costs will be on an 8-year-old Honda hybrid with original batteries. A 10-year-old Tesla is still way beyond $1000/year. To step into this brave new world will probably require me to suspend my $1000 rule until the water settles a bit.

Or I can pick up one more ICE car and stretch it out for 10 more years while things sort... Or compromise and just get a series of 3-4 year clunkers until I'm ready to dive into electric.

Or just bite the bullet and take the plunge now... Or...

Also, are Greeks "Western"? Are Italians? Croations? Austrians? What is "Western"? As a child it was confusing to me that those east of the Bering Sea are westerners and those west of the Bering Sea are eastern.

To be very USian, I was also puzzled as a child why Ohio was midwestern. It seems mideastern to me. I would call Utah midwestern.

There are other valid reasons for restricting the IP. I ask about those. I'm not arguing with the customer. I'm trying to be helpful.

Unless the customer doesn't want help.

When you have a corporate IT rep who is clueless about the options, they are not in a great position to build the optimal solution.

When you have an ISP rep who is clueless about the requirements, they are not in a great position to build the optimal solution.

When you have an ISP rep who is not willing to explain the options, you have a problem. When you have a corporate IT rep who doesn't know the requirements, is unwilling to explain the requirements, or is unwilling to learn about the options, you are unlikely to achieve the optimal solution.

When you have a helpful and capable ISP rep and a cooperative and capable IT rep, the world is a brighter place. But some levels of trust require either naivety or time and shared experiences. That's difficult when every contact between the customer and the ISP involve different people each time.

So, again, just like everything else, try to work with as small and local of an entity as possible to get the job done. This is true for government, auto dealers, ISPs, or anything else. Only scale up when there is an advantage to doing so.

This is not always the case, but it is the most common case.

So when a customer demands a dedicated static IP address, I wonder if they really need that. We charge extra for that because we have a limited pool of public IPv4 addresses. We can do it, but it is usually unnecessary, and better to avoid unless you really need it.

From time to time we get a customer who calls up to order a connection specifically for a VPN. They know exactly what they need. They won't listen. I try to steer them to a less expensive package that is perfectly adequate for a VPN. They'll have none of it. They want a bunch of special add-ons because they have done this all before with other ISPs and they know the ropes. They have no idea how a VPN even works, and they've never even heard of our company before, but they know exactly what they want.

I try to politely point out that I could help them save money and still guarnantee it will work without problems. But I won't argue with the customer. If they want to pay 5x for a bunch of custom stuff they don't need, I can do that.

In the end, they are very happy. They have outsmarted the greedy, conniving ISP, and got themselves a rock-solid service. I make a mental note to try to find a local contact for them with whom we can build a relationship of trust and perhaps persuade down the road that they could actually pay less without compromising their service.