Stratosphere Models website will be gone end of this month

[Stratospheremodels]

Hi folks,

Just to let you know and so you won't get surprised :

On February 28th, Picturetrail.com will close down (unfortunately). So my Stratosphere Models website/picture albums will be gone. I have no control over that. So I will have to find another place where to show my model kit products.

If you are interested by anything, please as usual use my email. I may not respond right away, due to Covid, + winter there are not a lot of safe places where I can go for internet, I'm doing my best to keep us safe and avoid public places, but I check my emails and answer them all. Since I'm highly unlikely to have the time to go check answers for each and every post I place on many different forums, so as always it's best to use email to get in touch with me, especially during Covid.

Some people will say, get Internet at home. I Tried... & they still owe me money & I never got the service I wanted. In Canada we have choice between 2 things for home Internet : very overpriced service by large companies with rotten service, or relatively "low" cost service by small companies (with slow connections) with rotten service who give you the wrong type of connection. We are known internationally as the country with the most expensive Internet.

In any case, anything you like to order please email me.

*** I still have in stock a few boxes full of Lockheed D-21 Mach 3 drones, X-37 USAF spaceplanes (Extremely detailed kits), USAF McDonnell FDL-7 C/D lifting body spaceplane (the VERY LAST ONE I have, the mold is kaput : half of it shrank after 1 year because I used a silicone I don't normally use, & I won't redo that mold because demand is too low for that kit), & McDonnell FDL-7 Model 176 (the one that was the final version the USAF was going to use to ferry crews to the MOL space station)(the mold of that kit is very fine, so, still in production, as are all the others above).

I need to sell all that overstock as I really need the space for my 3D printer.

In case you wonder what I'm up to lately : I have a new computer and I'm busy working at completing a new 3D airplane model which I will 3D print myself. It's 1/48th. And I have a long list of other 3D models I started a while ago which I will complete, plus some new ones I've added as new priorities.

 

You're invited to take a look before it's gone.

 

Stephane

Stratosphere Models

Email : stratospheremodels@yahoo.fr

Website :

http://picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

Edited February 26, 2021 by Stratospheremodels

[southwestforests]

13 hours ago, Stratospheremodels said:

Some people will say, get Internet at home. I Tried... & they still owe me money & I never got the service I wanted. In Canada we have choice between 2 things for home Internet : very overpriced service by large companies with rotten service, or relatively "low" cost service by small companies (with slow connections) with rotten service who give you the wrong type of connection. We are known internationally as the country with the most expensive Internet.

 

Knowing nothing about Canada's internet situation prior to reading that, I went playing in Google.

Dang, y'all do have a mess up there.

 

A couple samples of the kinds of info which came up:

 

From the Government, July 2019,

Quote

 

Overwhelmingly, rural and remote communities have identified challenges accessing affordable, high-speed Internet as the number one issue impeding their economic growth. This was the message heard loud and clear in developing Canada's Connectivity Strategy and the broader Rural Economic Development Strategy. That's what small-business owners told us. Parents. Doctors and nurses. Provincial and territorial governments. Municipalities. Indigenous communities. Non-profit organizations.

On behalf of the Government of Canada, the Honourable Bernadette Jordan, Canada's first Minister of Rural Economic Development, consulted hundreds of rural stakeholders from every province and territory on the Rural Economic Development Strategy. We heard about students having to do their homework at local coffee shops in order to access Wi-Fi, or at home in the middle of the night when speeds were better. We heard about small businesses unable to use Interac debit payment, and therefore forced to operate on a "cash only" basis. And we heard about farming operations trying to access global markets with fax machines.

 

 

From a magazine, December 2020,

Quote

 

Northwestel, the major—and sometimes the only—internet service provider in the North began offering unlimited internet to select communities on December 1. Their services will be offered in Whitehorse and Carcross in Yukon; Yellowknife, Norman Wells, Fort Smith and Hay River in the Northwest Territories; and Fort Nelson, British Columbia.

The unlimited service is available only as an add-on for customers of Northwestel’s Internet 50, 125, and 250 packages, and costs $160, $200 and $250 a month respectively. 

By contrast, $100 a month in Vancouver will get you unlimited internet that is twice or even three times as fast. 

Previously, no unlimited packages were available, and no unlimited internet access exists outside of these communities in the territories with Northwestel.

 

 

[bikerider]

While it's true the rural and remote parts of Canada (a huge part of the land) do have challenges getting infrastructure because of the high costs building  infrastructure of any kind to those regions, the vast majority of the population - 80% according to the most recent Statistics Canada info - live in urban areas. Even of that remaining 20% I would guess only a small percentage are not near a larger urban centre where connection to high speed internet is possible, though perhaps expensive

The internet situation is not a mess nor rotten ...   perhaps more expensive compared to other countries, that's certainly the case with cell phone service from what I understand.

But there's really no reason why the vast majority of Canadians can't get good internet service to the home if they choose too

 

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by bikerider

[Stratospheremodels]

Hi, giving examples of what I experienced personally with Internet providers would take too long and fill too much space here. An update though, and from my experience, it is very bad, all the big name companies play all kinds of overcharging games and tricks, that's the reason they have been taken to court several times by le Bureau de la Concurrence; and they lost and got charged millions of $ in fines if not billions. But it seems they never learn and keep trying to steal and defraud their customers because they frequently get sued by that federal court.

I also learned last night the hard way that my phone provider company are crooks and the reason why all my money on my pre-paid keeps disappearing without reason when I had only made a couple phone calls and 1 text message. Turns out they are not happy that my old plan is advantageous to me and they started doing that visibly to force people to take another much more expensive plan. He tried to make me take a 100$ plan... which does not have the advantages of my 5X less expensive plan anymore, and he admitted they are now charging me 60 cents each time a phone rings even if nobody picks up my calls ! Can you imagine that ?? Even Bell was not crooked enough to pull a stunt like that (and it's telling, given how bad Bell already is and how often they get dragged in court). The guy basically hanged up the line on me and refused to reimburse those charges. Well, guess what, I will have to bring these thieves to the Bureau de la Concurrence, because there's no way I will pay them for just hearing phones ringing !

The other problem is that Bell was a monopoly for many years until some competitors came in. But even today most of the few big names act like if they almost still have a monopoly, plus they bought most of the small new players. All the new companies are actually dependant on the infrastructure or cables of Bell, Videotron, Rogers. So no matter what smaller player you choose, you're usually still with these big 3 names, you are just getting it through smaller resellers, sorta. The installers are also always the techs from the big 3, and in the case of Bell have the typical bad behavior, I-don't-give-a-damn pressure tactics and crooked habits of their bosses. Small companies can't be trusted either and will pass a quick one (or many quick ones) past you if you trust them. Been there seen that. Did I mention I once briefly worked for Bell to clean up their messes ?

OK, back to scale models. If you are interested by any of my models go check my website while it's still up today and tomorrow, because on the 28th the pictures will be gone.

 

 

Stephane,

Stratosphere Models

Email : stratospheremodels@yahoo.fr

Website :

http://picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by Stratospheremodels